Hello everyone, cancer free since 2016! Been a model railroader since my Mom and Dad gave me a Marx wind-up O scale tinplate set from Sears for Christmas in 1958. Took a brief hiatus, thirty years, from the hobby to serve in the Navy and to raise a family. Currently, I have a rescued 72" church table that I’ve constructed a giant pizza type layout inspired by Bill Baron’s “Model Railroad in a Coffee Table” concept article in the June 1966 issue of MR. Below is a brief synopsis of my layout:

LAYOUT AT A GLANCE

Name: The Panera Branch of the Oregon Pacific & Santa Fe Railroad

Scale: HO Scale 1/87

Size: 72” circle 28.27 square feet area aka the Giant Pizza

Prototype: Freelance, inspired by the Santa Fe, NWP, and Southern Pacific

Locale: Los Nablus, California in the rural Emerald Valley

Era: Steam – Diesel transition, October 1945 – December 1959

Style: Island

Mainline run: 17 ¼ feet

Mainline radius: 33”

Minimum turnout: #7

Maximum grade: 2 percent

Benchwork: Tabletop

Height: 42 ½”

Roadbed: Woodland Scenes form strips

Track: Atlas Code 83 flex-track components

Scenery: Extruded foam insulation board with ground cover secured with a diluted white-glue solution

Control: DCC with SPROG/PC interface and walk around Wi-Fi control

Welcome to the Panera Branch of the Oregon Pacific & Santa Fe Railway, and my giant pizza layout, an unconventional twist on the continuous loop track plan. A warm spring day in June of 1950 serves as the perpetual setting around the community of Los Nablus, California. There is a passing siding and a spur which allows for some switching to break up the monotony of “just chasing the caboose.”

There are some truly