Seeing Local Model Railroads at "See" Level

Leo Pesce has been visiting some of our local layouts out here in the Bay Area and videotaping how things look from a train's eye view. Go check out his videos on YouTube to see some of our cool local layouts.

Rick Fortin's Valley Division Fourth District ATSF layout models a hypothetical Santa Fe branch from Chico north over the Siskyou mountains. Rick's layout is huge, requiring twenty people to operate well. One of my early operations experiences was handling the yard switcher at the west end of the yard, where I spent eight hours one Saturday just sorting boxcars. After spending a fun day in the yard, I went wandering around the layout at the end of the session and noticed some of the boxcars I switched spotted at industries up at the far end of the layout.

David Parks's Cumberland Western models the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Western Maryland as they fought through the Appalachian mountains near Cumberland, West Virginia. I've been lucky enough to operate several times at David's; again, it's a large layout that shows the fun of practicing teamwork to get trains moving over the railroad.