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 beginning the building of the Midnight & Sometimes Later Railroad Ed asked Kelly for assistance. Ed and Kelly had become 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, and Sometimes Later. The layout consists of three levels: on the upper level are the towns of Midnight and Ledgeville, the main level has the towns of Sometimes Later and Hillside and the new NWX Yard. Located under the town of Sometimes Later on the lower level is the six track hidden staging yard of Peoria.

WHAT'S NEW:

In January 2007 the railroad began building 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 their 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 three engine storage tracks, plus an engine maintenance track and one track for caboose storage. In addition to the new yard we added a wye between the NWX yard and Hillside. This allows us to enter the yard from two directions, plus allows the turning of a locomotive.

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

UPCOMING EVENTS:

We had a successful fall tour sponsored by the San Jacinto Model Railroad club. This was the sixth time we were on the tour. We had 56 people come by to enjoy the layout and have one of Teresa’s great cookies.

Out next big event is hosting ProRail on April 24, 25, and 26, 2008. We are scheduled to have a sesson for three operators each morning of ProRail. We look forward to hosting fellow model railroad operators at the Midnight and Sometimes Later Railroad

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 are proud of our car card systems for operating the layout. This system utilizes a card with a picture of the car on the card. Check out the details of the system on the link to the left.

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 December 10, 2007, 2007

By Ed Dibble.