An overview of the Colorado Model Railroad Museum. On the right is Gearhart Mountain, and in the background is the last operational Colorado & Southern wood caboose number 10583. A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to visit the Colorado Model Railroad Museum in Greeley, Colorado. The cost of admission to the museum is $14 for adults, and is more than worth the price of admission to see the layout and tour the museum. The museum is an amazing collection of railroad artifacts, model railroad items, and a huge HO scale layout. The layout is named the Oregon, California, and Eastern Railwa ..read more

A D&H through freight rumbles across a bridge on Justin Jankauskas' D&H Penn Division layout. This month we’ll tour Justin Jankauskas’ Delaware and Hudson Railway (D&H) Penn Division model railroad. The layout highlights the two towns of Carbondale and Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the late 1970s. Justin grew up in the area and has a lot of knowledge of the railroad and its operations. The layout is closely based on the prototype, with many scenes created from memory or photographs of the area. The unique four story building, with the third story access to the bridge, was modeled ba ..read more

The paper mill turn job crosses a short bridge near the town of Klein on Robert Meyer's Southern Railway's Phlatt River Branch. Continuing our tour of some great model railroads, this month we’ll take a look at Robert Meyer’s Southern Railway's Phlatt River Branch model railroad. Robert has been working on the layout for the past few years and has gotten it to the point where he can host operating sessions, but still has several more years of work on scenery and structures. The railroad models a fictitious branch line of the Southern Railway in 1973. The branch lines serves a few towns along ..read more

This month we’ll take a look at John Rieken’s Transcon Four layout. John’s large double deck layout, approximately 36’ X 53’, and occupies most of his basement. The focus of the layout is around operations and replicating the jobs that are required to move a lot of cars during an ops session. The layout is operated four times a year with a crew of 12 to 18 operators. John's unique "train elevator" moves trains from the upper level to the lower level without using a helix. Cables attached to an electic winch move the elevator, and any operators must be trained on using it before an ops sessio ..read more

L&N locomotive 4501, an EMD SD38-2, rounds a curve behind the barn on Pelle Soeborg's layout, now located at ScaleTrains in Tennessee. In October ScaleTrains hosted an open house at their new warehouse and offices located in Cleveland, Tennessee. One of the highlights of the facility is Pelle Soeborg’s Union Pacific Daneburg Subdivision layout that has a new home there. The layout has been featured in several Model Railroader Magazine articles and in Pelle’s books. I have always liked and admired Pelle’s layouts and really wanted to see the Daneburg Subdivision in person. The ScaleTrains ..read more

This month I had the opportunity to visit Stephen Floyd and see his new Southern Railway Sylvania Branch model railroad. This new layout replaces an N scale layout that he previously built on the same benchwork. Stephen chose to model Sylvania Georgia, a small town approximately half way between Savannah and Augusta, Georgia served by the Southern Railway. In the early 1980s, Sylvania had several industries that were rail served and offered a lot of switching in a compact space. Cars spotted for some industries blocked access to other industries down the spur and would occasionally be moved t ..read more

Just like when building a house, you need a firm foundation when you are building your model railroad layout. In model railroading our “foundation” is the benchwork for the layout. As you can see in the photo from Scott Lister’s Greenville and Northern Railroad, he has built a sturdy foundation for his award winning house under construction model, but what you don’t see in the photo is the sturdy benchwork the model is sitting on. When we visit model railroads many times we forget to check out the underside of the layout and learn how the modeler built their benchwork. Scott designed his lay ..read more

This month I had the opportunity to visit Tim Garland and see his new Seaboard Central layout. Tim recently moved, and is building a new and bigger version of the Seaboard Central that was featured in the June 2023 issue of Model Railroader magazine. His new layout will eventually fill most of his large basement, but he is working on one section at a time, building and adding scenery to each section as he finishes it. This is the TOMA (The One Module Approach) method of building a layout touted by Joe Fugate in MRH. As Tim mentioned to me, it allows him to get sections done, hold operating se ..read more

This month marks the tenth anniversary of my Georgia Northeastern model railroad. It is hard to believe that it has been ten years since I began building my layout. The time has flown by! Before construction on the layout began I spent about a year doing research and planning, so once the layout room in the basement was finished I was ready to go. The bench work was built in my garage and then installed in my train room, which kept the sawdust and dirt out of the house. By November of 2013 all the track was installed and I was running trains on my layout. In Lance Mindheim’s new book, 8 Trac ..read more

After receiving a General Manager's Notice that the grade crossing signals are out of service at Sawyer Road, a crew member flags the crossing as required in the notice to protect motorist at the grade crossing. Once the crossing is "covered" by the train, the crew member will board the locomotive and they'll continue their trip north. Train messages and bulletins can be issued which supersede instructions in the timetable and any rules with which such bulletins may conflict. These bulletins outline special issues or procedures of a temporary nature that affect the operations of trains. Proto ..read more