Oakwood

    Oakwood module with a freight train on the main
    Oakwood track plan, top view
    Track plan
    OAKWOOD station sign
    • Matt Jacobs and Keith Kohlmann
    • Oakwood, WI
    • Built 2010, rebuilt 2020
    • Atlas Code 55 Track
    • 5 ft (1 Module)
    Gas pumps and a house across the road from the Oakwood depot

    Oakwood is a single five-foot module showing a quiet country station on a double-track main. A small hip-roofed depot sits on a long gravel lot, and a stub spur leaves the back main near the middle of the module and runs about 28 inches to a bumper. A road crosses at grade near the left end, and fenced row-crop fields, a lane shed and a relay box fill out the rest of the scene.

    Milwaukee Road depot at Oakwood, Wisconsin, in 1955
    The Milwaukee Road depot at Oakwood, Wis., July 11, 1955. Photo by Don Ross.

    The prototype was on the Milwaukee Road’s Chicago–Milwaukee main in what is now Oak Creek, Wisconsin, near today’s Oakwood Road. The Wisconsin Union Railroad opened Oakwood Station in May 1872, and in 1906 the line was moved about 950 feet east and double-tracked (Oak Creek monument text). The Milwaukee Road’s February 2, 1947 employee timetable lists Oakwood at milepost 72.8 from Chicago, telegraph call WD, with 16 cars of track capacity and no open office. It was inside the timetable’s Centralized Traffic Control section, which ran north from Sturtevant past Tower A68 and Caledonia. Oakwood also turns up in Hiawatha history: in 1934 a Milwaukee Road test train averaged 92.62 mph over the 61.4 miles between Edgebrook, Ill., and Oakwood (Milwaukee Road, a Brief History, 1968).

    Matt Jacobs built Oakwood in 2010, and it was rebuilt by Keith Kohlmann in 2020

    The quiet siding is a place you can find Milwaukee Road track gangs camping out as they work the C&M mainline.

    Olympian Hiawatha passes the IGA grocery store in Oakwood. Keith Kohlmann photo and modeling.
    Oakwood station in the mid 1950’s
    Keith Kohlmann’s vehicles at the Oakwood freight house. The 1954 Packard is by Brian Feddorf.

    Building Oakwood

    Oakwood is a standard 5 foot Modutrak straight module. It is 18″ wide and features one siding. The module was originally constructed by Matt Jocobs following prototype information from the archives of Keith Kohlmann. The module needed a refresh in 2020 and was reconstructed by Keith Kohlmann to bring it up to our current levels of detail.

    Track and wiring

    The turnout off the mainline is an Atlas #7. Turnout control is a Tortoise switch machine motor driven by our standard Modutrak RCA jack switch keys. There are not signals, and therefore no block detection on this particular module. It feeds adjacent blocks.

    Scenery and structures

    The depot is a modified Depots by John resin kit, sawed to create the hip roof.

    Sources: Milwaukee Road Milwaukee Division employee timetable No. 28, February 2, 1947; Oak Creek historical monument text (Wisconsin Union Railroad); Oakwood, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin; Milwaukee Road, a Brief History (1968). Module photos: Mike Skibbe, Keith Kohlmann.