Reincarnation of the Superior Northern Railroad

After the loss of the original Superior Northern (see About Us page) the club continued to operate the GR&I modular railroad in the basement of Sunset Manor.  After a few months of operation a decision was made to scrape the GR&I  and replace it with a multilevel layout based on the Soo, DSS&A, and LS&I operations in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and would be reincarnated as the Superior Northern.  A smaller GR&I layout was maintained until a portion of the new track could be completed on the Superior Northern.  This allowed limited train operations while construction proceeded on the new layout.  With a few prior authorized exceptions, all locomotives, rolling stock, buildings, and scenery are owned by the club.  Locomotive control will be DCC utilizing an EasyDCC system and operating sessions will be setup utilizing Ship It! software. 

Construction started in September, 2015 on the benchwork for the Superior Northern and members normally get together on Monday nights to work on the new layout.  All the track has been laid and the emphasis is now on ballasting the track and other scenery. Construction progress can be followed by viewing the pictures available by year on the left sidebar to this page.

As can be seen from the benchwork photos, the layout is two levels.  The benchwork is metal studs to avoid warping.  Most of the bottom level is set at 39.5 inches from the floor to the top of the stud and the upper level is 57.5 inches.  The benchwork for the International Bridges is set 3 inches lower at 36.5 inches.  The upper level includes the towns of Marquette, Ishpeming and Munising while the lower level includes the towns of Sault Ste. Marie, Brimley, Newberry, and St. Ignace  A few of the featured scenery items are the railroad ferryboat Chief Wawatam at St. Ignace, the ore dock at Marquette,  and the railroad bridge and Soo yard at Sault Ste Marie.  The goal is to emulate and improve on the original Superior Northern layout.  That sets the bar very high for this new layout but the results can be compared by referring to these photos of the original layout.  To see layout plans for the completed Superior Northern check out the Superior Northern Operations page.

All the #6 turnouts on the new layout are built by hand.  Rob has designed a tie cutter to simplify the process of cutting ties to different lengths for the turnouts.  There is a video of the Tieanator in action on the Videos page.

In March if 2020 all meetings were stopped due to Covid and did not start again until July of 2021.  Even then they were limited and construction did not get in full gear until 2022.  The track plan was completed in 2022 so not many pictures were added to the 2022 construction page.  All  new pictures are being added to the specific layout locations on the unique Operation Pages.