The village of Fagerhult is a small place with a big industry. There is also a multi activity center hosting a sports hall, conference room, kitchen, dressing rooms with showers etc. This venue was the place for the second “americaN in Fagerhult”

17 contributors provided modules for a huge layout. The designers and traffic planners created a system where three separate lines (Blue, Gray and Orange) were serviced by three corresponding division yards (Whitehall, Pine Hill and Corleone). Manifests originated at the staging yards connected to one of these lines, terminated at the corresponding division yard and a transfer train took the cars to the other yards/lines. The transfer loco + caboose went back light (no cars) to its origin. This procedure was prototypical for the time which in this case was 1950-1970s. Locals then forwarded cars to their final destinations.

In addition to the manifests and locals, unit trains like coal and scrap metal to US Steel/Haslingen were seen.

An important part was the passenger traffic with focal point at Union Station. Very common, in our module world, is that these trains travel only from one end to another and make stops at the stations without further action. In this case however, there were always an amount of switching included express cars, sleepers, mail and milk cars that had to be dropped or picked up, a procedure that made also the passenger trains challenging and fun.

The critical point was the Yakima Wye where tracks led in three directions. It was however well controlled by the dispatcher.

We achieved our objective of a laid back and stress free operation without gridlocks or a lot of waiting was met.
Overall a good meeting according to the feedback from the participants.

AmericaN In Fagerhult 2020 is already on the drawing board.