INTRODUCTION:

The Midnight and Sometimes Later Railroad is the joint project of Ed Dibble and Kelly Russell. The railroad is a freelanced HO scale model railroad located in a spare bedroom of the Owner-President Ed Dibble. When Ed began building the Midnight & Sometimes Later Railroad he asked Kelly for assistance. Ed and Kelly were model railroad buddies through the Northwest Crossing Model Railroad Club, where for many years they were the driving force behind HO division of the club. While Ed has done most of the work on the railroad many of the structures and track work are because of Kelly’s involvement in the railroad.

The M&SL is a point-to-point short line railroad serving the towns of Midnight, Ledgeville, Hillside, Hanley Falls, Minneapolis, and Sometimes Later. The layout consists of three levels: on the upper level are the towns of Midnight and Ledgeville, on the middle level are the towns of Hanley Falls, Minneapolis, Sometimes Later, Hillside, and the new NWX Yard. The lower level is the six track hidden staging yard of Peoria.

WHAT'S NEW:

In January 2007 the railroad built a new classification yard in the train room closet. The construction involved cutting a hole in the closet wall and adding a new shelf above the workbench. In honor of Ed and Kelly's years of involvement with the Northwest Crossing Club they decided to name the new yard the Northwest Crossing Yard (NWX).

The new NWX yard has five train classification tracks and four engine storage tracks, plus an engine maintenance track. In addition to the new yard we added a wye between the NWX yard and Hillside allowing trains to enter the yard from two directions, plus allowing the turning of a locomotive.

We turned the old Midnight Yard into an industrial area allowing more switching activities in our operating sessions. The new Midnight Industrial area contains of Doug’s Feed Mill, Bradley Manufacturing, Mark’s Bakery, Midnight Ethanol Plant, Bryant Supply, and the Midnight Depot.

Beginning in early 2009 the MSL dropped the car card system developed by Kelly (see article on this web site) in favor of Rail Op as our car forwarding/manifest system. So far it has worked out great for the railroad allowing us better control over local moves and keeping track of cars.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Again in 2009 we are hosting Hooters 2009 on October 23, 24 & 25. We look forward to hosting fellow model railroad operators at the Midnight and Sometimes Later Railroad.

Because of Ed's travels out of the country, we will not participate in the San Jacinto Model Railroad Home Tour this year.

VISIT MORE OF OUR WEB SITE:

Enjoy your visit here at the M&SL web site by taking a virtual tour of the railroad by selecting the various Points of Interest.

We also have a complete operating manual that we invite you to view and use on your railroad. The operating manual includes instructions on using the Digitrax UT1, UT2, UT4, and DT300 throttles.

Updated July 1, 2009

By Ed Dibble.