Here is a proposed design for one half of the control panel for the first module.

Since the yard is part of a peninsula, I’m putting half of the switch controls on each side, with indicator lights showing how the switches on other half are configured.

You can also see why this is first module that I’m building. Virtually the entire City Point terminal complex can be reached directly from tracks off of this module. There were crossover switches just to left of this part of the yard, that connect the two halves together. That will be the next module that I will build.

After starting construction of the City Point Terminal, a couple of things have impressed me.

First is the great difference between building a mythical model railroad and building a scale model of a certain time and place. The later brings a lot of interesting little problems and tasks into play, that don’t exist in the mythical model railroad. Choosing an era that is not that well supported by commercial products, just makes it that much more interesting.

The other is how this process is surprisingly similar to building reproduction vintage computers. Research, planning, design, fabrication and troubleshooting are all involved in a very similar way. In a sense the City Point and Army Line model is a reproduction, in miniature, of the real thing. The difference is my reproduction vintage computers aren’t scaled down, and unlike a model railroad, operate in exactly the same way, as the original.