The Pebble Creek Model Railroad

Got a chance to operate recently on this amazing club layout, the Great Lakes Western RR at the Pebble Creek Model Railroad  I visited my long time model railroad friend, Bruce Petrarca, who lives in Goodyear, Arizona, just west of Phoenix in a planned gated community.  The club rents out space in the community center building and membership is exclusive to residents.  They can invite guests so I dropped by on the week day of operations.

Panorama of layout room.  

An HO scale layout built for operations, it began 6 years ago and now it is 90% complete.  Pretty neat.  Can handle about 8 operators.  The Great Lakes Western is a fictional HO railroad depicting railroading around the Chicago area in 1960s.  It uses real city names and the mix of rail-served customers and industries has been carefully designed to support realistic operations.  The idea is to provide a midwestern setting where both East Coast and West Coast interchange trains would be appropriate.

The Main Yard in Hammond, Indiana south of Chicago

They gave the new guy an easy, yet fun local then he got to run a couple trains clear around the layout.  Fun morning.

Operating the local

I counted 6 yards on the railroad.  My kinda layout.

My friend Bruce running one of the cool yards, South Bend

There is also a garden railroad which I saw outside when I first entered.  Not running tho.

Afterwards we went to a local Mexican restaurant for Taco Tuesdays.  I had the $2 cheese enchilada.  Welcome to retirement.  Hehe.

- Blessings from the Road

Location:Clubhouse Dr,Goodyear,United States