Modeling that makes me feel....small.

[CraigZ]

O scale trains ascend and descend the Tehachapi loop on a layout I recently visited. Shot with a handheld cell phone camera, 720p available.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaTkj5NUCFs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAcfhtpgGTU

 

Same 14 car passenger train on both; the owner swapped out the power. The layout is, well, spectacular. The attention to detail is like nothing I've ever seen. We've all see people run power lines on poles and run the wires to the structures in the town. But ever hear of anybody differentiating between the structures in the town that would use single phase vs three phase power, and wire from the pole to the structure as such? And wiring the transformers prototypically with delta vs wye connections on top? He did it here. Car license plates are all accurate for the era. The labels on the citrus crates at the warehouse loading dock are all prototypically accurate for that era in California. It's just plain stunning, there's no other way to put it.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

My word, thats very good - just like the loop for real. Anymore on this layout?

[highpeak]

There's something about a big, long passenger train. A long time ago there was a model shop in Bar Mills, ME. The shop was in the basement of the owner's house and his layout made a pass through the store. He had a CP passenger train that was easily 14 cars, the motive power was an old Hobbytown drive Alco.

Now if you looked closely the passenger cars were really quite crude, little more really than blocks of wood on trucks. But that wasn't the point. When this train came through the shop and clattered over the diamonds, you instinctively took a step backwards because it certainly created the sound and impression of a big, heavy train running at high speed. I don't know whether he had some sort of timing circuit that held the train elsewhere on his layout, because it put in somewhat random appearances through the shop, disrupting any conversations.

[CraigZ]

My word, thats very good - just like the loop for real. Anymore on this layout?

 

I can offer two more views here, but it was an open house and there were people all around. However, it was featured in and on the cover of "O Scale Trains" magazine last year, the Sept/Oct issue. The roundhouse scene represents Bakersfield, CA if I'm not mistaken. The trains run flawlessly too.

 

 

 

 

[F-UnitMad]

... The layout is, well, spectacular. The attention to detail is like nothing I've ever seen....

Interesting that such thought has gone into the detail... it's easy to think a big layout might skimp on it, as it might be 'lost' in the overall scene - or of course there's only so many hours per day to do it all... but to go to that sort of length is really raising the bar!!

..... I see the double deck conforms to "No height suits anyone", though...