The Grand Trunk's main shops and yard are in Battle Creek, Michigan. This small yard on my layout is designed to be a compressed representation
of the much larger prototype. I'm also scratch buliding several models of the actual yard structures (the shops, the tower and CN's new mainline fueling facility) The yard structures are fairly distinctive, and will give the viewer a feel of what it's like in Battle Creek. The real yard also has lots of well maintained landscaping and trees throughout, which gives it a more finished look than other railroad's 3 mile "cinder-lots"

This is mostly a visible staging area to store the current roster of local freights cars and diesel power to deliver them. About 5 locomotives,
a 4 car work train, 2 cabooses and 21 freight cars are about all I can store here and still have room to switch them all around.

The mainline tracks (1 & 2) start a 4% downgrade to the staging ledge, right about where the fuel and sand islands are. At first, I was not happy about this and thought of locating the yard elsewhere. But what I discovered was a great opportunity to simulate hump operations! The switcher (NW-2) drags cuts out onto the main (Track 2) and over the magnetic uncoupler located in front of the Hotbox Detector. The cars roll down the grade ( left to right shown here ) and around the curve to a magnetic retarder which holds the car in place. Other cars roll down in specified order and couple up with the first car. The road power (GP-9's and GP-38-2's) is tied on to the consist and then it's off to make today's set-outs & pick-ups.