Cal-State Railroad Museum O and Standard gauge layout

overview of large room with model trains

What’s that? This is the summer when you visit every NASCAR track and Elvis memorial in Dixie? Forget it. Your passports are ready so you can take the kids to Six Flags over Cambodia? Put ’em away. There’s a family reunion in Wisconsin and you promised to bring the cheese curds and bratwurst? Let the […]

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Ralph Muller’s Hart-built layout

One of the most notable changes in the toy train hobby over the past 10 to 15 years has been the emergence of businesses that design and build layouts. Companies under the direction of an imaginative leader oversee construction of O and S gauge railroads for individuals as well as museums and other public institutions. […]

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Don Williams’ O and S gauge layout

Tourists motor to Horseshoe Curve to watch the cavalcade of trains. When Don was young, the headliners were aluminum cars on the Pennsy’s Broadway Limited. Don and Karen Williams share their layout with visitors, including grandsons Jacob and Zachary. Iron horses in the Korber roundhouse watch a 3rd Rail Pennsy Atlantic 4-4-2 steam locomotive take […]

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John Ruh’s O gauge tribute to Route 66

Route 66 – the two-lane highway that winds its way from Chicago to Los Angeles – has been immortalized in popular music, literature, and television. Who doesn’t remember the Joads making their way west on the Mother Road of the U.S. in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath or Tod and Buz tooling along in […]

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Jon Brooks fabulous O gauge pike video

Jon Brooks’ L-shaped O gauge layout is loaded with operating accessories from the past and present. The story of his latest railroad is featured in the February 2010 issue of Classic Toy Trains magazine, and also the star of this video he posted on youtube.com Sit back and watch the action! […]

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Jon Brooks fabulous O gauge pike video

Jon Brooks’ L-shaped O gauge layout is loaded with operating accessories from the past and present. The story of his latest railroad is featured in the February 2010 issue of Classic Toy Trains magazine, and also the star of this video he posted on youtube.com Sit back and watch the action! […]

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Atlas O Angel Train starter set

SPECIALTY TRAIN SETS ARE NO STRANGERS TO THE WORLD OF TOY TRAINS. In a broad sense, the specialty sets try to target a segment of the populace that might not otherwise buy a toy train set. So if someone has a train and likes it, he or she may show it to friends and pass […]

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RailKing O gauge FP45 diesel by MTH

THE SANTA FE WAS ONE RAILROAD THAT DID PASSENGER SERVICE RIGHT, all the way to the end of private passenger train operations. An interesting side angle to the story is that the Santa Fe developed a group of railroaders that knew a thing or two about running fast trains between Chicago and the Pacific Coast. […]

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