Owner Inspiration & Techniques: Argentine Industrial District

The Argentine Industrial District HO scale switching railway of Chuck Hitchcock is quite a departure from Chuck’s previous railroad. In this video Allen Keller asks why he tore out the old Santa Fe railways to build his new layout. Chuck wanted to go for something a bit more relaxed and easier to own and operate. The old railroad would take 10 to 12 hours to stage with many electronics and some maintenance that required getting in behind staging the trains. He wanted something funner and easier to operate at his older age.

There is no main line on the railroad, so Allen Keller asks where big trains go on the switching layout. The layout is a prototype railroad based on the actions of the railroad in Kansas City. Many years ago when Chuck went out to Argentine he would watch the constant flow of transfers coming from the other 12 railroads through the Santa Fe. He developed five different areas where switching would take place for his railroad.

Allen Keller wonders how exciting or scary it was for Chuck to start his layout all over again. There were so many new things in the hobby that had been developed in the time that Chuck had his railroad but it was still exciting because he had some inspiration from a fellow modeler to create this type of railroad. He missed the construction part of modeling and also shifted the modeled time period from 1953 to 1960. In this time period, Chuck was able to model a more clean separation between the steam and diesel transition time and he also wanted to maintain first generation locomotives. For more Allen Keller videos, visit our Model Railroad Academy archives.