AM Tours

David Gaines’ DD&G Railway – TOUR CANCELLED

The layout is freelanced and the era is roughly from the 1970s to the present. The layout has two levels, a mainline (lower) and a branch line (upper). Most of the motive power is diesel but I am starting to add steam power as well. The layout is spread across two rooms. The main room features a 6-track yard and a coal tipple. A refinery is also in the yard area. There is a small town reminiscent of a small northern town in the Midwest. There also is a small farm area that travelers pass as they are going into town or to work in the refinery or tipple. The road system, structures, and scenery are all still in the works. Lastly, the main train room has been extended into the neighboring room. The branch line, from the main train room, is extended into the second room. The second room also has an upper level with 2-Rail 0 Scale. This section of the layout features a turntable and eventually a steel mill in a small town. There is no scenery at this point but trains are running. The layout is about 45% complete-. All control systems are in place but some structures and signals still need to be wired. The road system, structures, and scenery are all still in the works and this will give visitors the opportunity to see a work in progress.

The Alpine Central Railroad is an HO/HOn3 layout occupying two rooms with one room double decked. The layout has been revised for operations. The setting is Colorado with mines and bridges loosely based on the Old South Park Line with corresponding towns. Stand in structures gradually are replaced by prototype. JMRI is used for dispatching from an office created in a steam locomotive cab. JMRI cell phone or Digitrax Simplex throttles are used. The track in one room is MicroEngineering and the track in the other is handlayed. Locomotives are Blackstone and brass for narrow gauge. Seven AP awards were earned with the layout including Prototype Modeler. While the engineer can see the layout now, an onboard video control system is currently being installed.

All structures are hand built, most from kits with some kitbashing and a few scratch built. The double bridge over the river is an unusual feature. The industries in Chama Junction are mostly located along the front of the layout on both sides of the river; basic infrastructure like dairy, oilwell supply, fuel, feed & seed and a freight depot. The junction house serves the passenger traffic, and you can see that an open top tour bus awaits incoming passengers. Just across the river is a section house for MOW crew, and some of their rolling stock is near the junction house. Toward the rear of the layout you see a coal mine beneath the mountain, an additional small freight depot, the newspaper and post office, an engine yard with shops, a sand tower and maintenance facilities, a general store, law office and residential area. Like all layouts, this one isn’t finished. There is always more scenery work to be done, rolling stock and locomotives to letter and weather, and lots of small details. Several of my locomotives are "deadrail", meaning that they carry their own battery power supply, and are controlled by radio throttles.

The G & T is a hypothetical L & N branch line in North Georgia. Uses two levels with some staging below. Point to point operation (reverse loop to reverse loop for open house). The grade change between levels is mostly exposed (with a passing track) on a peninsula. The railroad serves carpet factories, a paper mill, a marble yard and chicken feed dealers along with typical industries. Operations feature a great deal of interchange traffic with other L & N lines and Southern Rwy. Scenic terrain and trees are mostly complete, most track is ballasted, most cars are weathered, most locomotives have sound, much work yet to do on structures. Features fall foliage. Turnouts are mostly Tortoise powered with controls (with LEDs) on the fascia. Yard control panels are in place at three smaller yards and there is a large panel for the Coosawattee Yard towerman (also staging yard controls). Several turnouts have dual control. On the Pilgrimage for the first time since 2018.