History of the Naptown & White River Railroad

The fictional Naptown & White River railroad was incorporated in 1877 after the reorganization of its predecessor lines. The newly created company owned trackage from Evansville to Fort Wayne and from Rockdale to Kentland, with the two lines crossing in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The NWR grew from its beginnings in 1877 into a viable small to medium sized rail line through wise, conservative Hoosier leadership.

The club has chosen to depict the Southwest Division of the NWR as she would have existed in the decade of the 1950's, stretching from West Marmon to East Bend, with the major Naptown yards in the middle.

Interchange traffic with the Monon occurs at Hunter's Ridge just West of Miller Mine. Some of the towns and industries along the main line and branch lines are:

1. •West Marmon - Industrial town with multiple switching areas.
   

2. •Naptown - NWR's main yard with steam and diesel servicing facilities
   

3. •Lockwood Junction - Passenger station and connection to the LaSalle branch
   

4. •Cementville - Cement plant, diesel servicing facility and branch line connection
   

5. •Lasalle - Switching/interchange yard, passenger station and many small industries
   

6. •Thomasville - Livestock docks, and grain elevator.
   

7. •Miller Mine - Major coal mine
   

8. •West Marmon -
   

9. •East Bend - A major town with large passenger station and yard facilities (under construction).
   

10. •West Naptown - Various docks for several large industries.
    

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About the Layout

Scale

1. •HO
   

Rail

1. •Code 100 nickel-silver flextrack (Atlas)
   

Turnouts

1. •Peco Code 100 nickel-silver in any new construction
   

2. •Atlas Code 100 nickel-silver turnouts #6 or greater, in original construction.
   

3. •Mainline turnouts are powered by Tortoise turnout motors, and can be controlled from local panels or by dispatcher. Some turnouts are DCC controlled.
   

4. •Atlas turnouts on the branch line and in the yards have Caboose Hobbies ground throws. 
   

5. •Since the Peco turnouts are "sprung", no ground throw is used.
   

Trackplan

1. •Point to point with continuous running option for open houses, starting at Naptown Yard, winding through the countryside to a loop at and below East End, and back to Naptown Yard.
   

2. •For operating sessions, the layout is "point to point." The ends are at the North end of the building - one at West Marmon, the other at East Bend.
   

3. •A simple, single run on our mainline is a little more than 6 scale miles (about 375 feet of track). We haven't yet calculated the total mainline track, passing sidings, etc...but that's coming! Check back here soon...
   

Era & Style

1. •The decade of the 1950's, based on a fictional "freelanced" railroad, based on prototypical practices.
   

Control

1. •Digitrax DCC (Digital Command Control). 
   

2. •DC locomotives can still operate on DCC.  Visiting locomotives not equipped with a decoder respond to commands at throttle address "00".
   

Special Equipment

1. •A PTC Turntable control system is in place at the Naptown yards, allowing automated function of the layout's largest turntable / roundhouse facility.
   

2. •Several crossings along the way are controlled by LED sensors, triggering automated crossing signals.
   

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Video of NWR

Although this predates some of our late 2007 and 2008 updates to the layout, it still gives a great sense of our layout’s size and variety.

Because of file size limitations on YouTube, the video is presented in two parts.