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| Owner / Location / Website | Crew | Operating System | Car Forwarding | Layout Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claremore & Southern Model RR Claremore, OK www.CSRailclub.com |
18 | Rail Command | Car Cards | Separate building. 1st floor. |
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The C&S is based on the Cherokee Subdivision of the Frisco Railroad. It currently operates between Monett, MO and Oklahoma City, OK. The major yard is Osage yard, which is patterned after Frisco's Cherokee Yard in Tulsa, OK. As in the prototype, operations in Osage yard are the key to smooth operations on the railroad. While yard operations are largely invisible to road crews, the smooth and efficient movement of several hundred cars through Osage Yard during a typical operating session is essential to a successful operating session. The drill crew is almost constantly busy classifying cars while the trimmer crew makes up departing trains. The yardmaster is kept busy directing this activity and handling arrivals and departures. A hostler services engines and stages power for departing trains.
A second yard is located in Claremore, OK where the C&S interchanges traffic with the Missouri Pacific (known as the MOP to C&S crews). One of the unique things about the C&S is that it models two separate railroads. The primary railroad is the dispatcher controlled C&S. The secondary railroad (but not a branch line) is the Missouri Pacific (MOP) which is operated as a "dark" railroad. The MOP runs independently of the C&S and operates between Coffeyville, KS and Ft. Smith, AR with several industrial customers in the towns of Muskogee, OK, Oolagah, OK and Coffeyville, KS as well as engine facilities at its Coffeyville division point. The MOP and the C&S interchange traffic at Claremore.
The railroad is set in Summer, 1955 and is built in HO scale.
Engine types include primarily EMD F3s, both A/B/A sets and single engines, and GP-7s. In addition there are a couple of SD7s, a few RS1s, a pair of NW2s, an F7, an FT and a pair of E8s in the engine shop being overhauled for passenger service on the MOP. Rolling stock which operates with car card waybills includes over 350 box cars, 50 flat cars, 100 covered gondola cars and 80 hopper cars. Non waybilled cars include reefer and hopper car unit trains along with a dozen or more C&S crummys and a number of passenger cars.
The layout is an island design which is "sincere", that is west is always to the operator's left and east to the right. There are no duckunders and the railroad does not double back on itself. The 12-track staging yard is isolated from the layout by partitions but is completely visible when the operator is in the staging yard area. The only hidden track on the layout is the reversing loop, which represents Ft. Smith on the MOP. The C&S mainline is 243 feet long and there are ~40 industrial sidings for spotting cars. The MOP has a four track yard at Coffeyville, a 175 foot long mainline and ~20 industrial sidings. Mainline height varies from 42" in staging to ~52" as it passes above and behind Oologah, OK.
