FALLEN FLAGS JUNCTION

Welcome to Fallen Flags Junction. This is a fun, engaging, interactive model railroad project. Model railroading remains one of the most popular hobbies in the world. There are hundreds of thousands of men, women, and young people who love watching real (prototype) trains, not to mention creating their own “alternate realities” via modeling.

There are many types of model railroads as well. Some are designed to represent a specific railroad, location, purpose and time. Others are totally made up with fictitious railroads, towns, industries, and geography.

Fallen Flags Junction is an interesting project, as it combines a bit of both freelance and prototypical history into a single, modeled environment. The layout is based on N-Scale, a format that is 1/160 the size of real people, buildings, and trains. It includes two cities – Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles, California. A single (freestyle) fictitious route connects both cities. The idea is that materials are assembled in either location, then transferred to the other city.

Many model railroads are based on loops of track, where people can watch trains running without constant supervision. Fallen Flags junction is a point-to-point model railroad, meaning the tracks go from one location to another. There is no continuous loop. However, the concept of moving freight and people from one location to the other is presented in as accurate a form as possible, with many “scenes” that convey what the connection between these two cities might have been.

There is a specific time period for this model railroad as well. The time period is general – not a specific day or year, but is set in the 1970 through 1972 time period.

Most importantly, all of the railroads represented in this model railroad no longer exist. This is a visual story of fallen flag transportation companies – including the Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, and Burlington Northern railroads.

Building the layout

Check out our YouTube channel and watch the progress of the Fallen Flags Junction project. Learn new techniques related to DCC automation, scenery, locomotive and rolling stock weathering, operations and much more.

History

explore the history behind the project

T-Trak Integration

One of the most interesting components for the Fallen Flags project is the implementation of T-TRAK. T-TRAK was developed in Japan, but was popularized in the United States by Lee Monaco-FitzGerald. T-TRAK is based on Kato Unitrack. We've found an interesting way to incorporate it into our layout!

Recent Posts

05Jan
A mural building in the arts district of Los Angeles

Planning For Structures

After you’ve developed your track plan, it’s important to ensure you have the appropriate space to create realistic looking structures, roads, and collectively “scenes.” A lot of model railroads put
15Dec

Fallen Flags Afterlife

Back in the day, when a railroad merged with another, the new parent would often leave the existing livery intact, with perhaps the exception of either changing the unit number,