AM Tours

Brian Glock’s Sugar Valley & Sweetwater Railroad (SV&S)

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.

Georgia, Alabama & Tennessee (GAT) RR, MDR Division. Proto freelance Southeast railroads, primarily Central of Georgia with occasional Southern, Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Air Line and L&N. Trains operate connections to Chattanooga, Birmingham, Atlanta and Savannah. Over 300' of mainline with currently six sidings. Layout is under construction. Benchwork 90% complete. Lower level staging, mainline and branch line completed (Yes, we will be running trains!). Unique external helix is complete and operational. Excellent opportunity to see construction and electrical phase of model railroading. Plenty of experience will be present to answer questions with examples.

The Alpine Central Railroad is an HO/HOn3 layout occupying three rooms with the 2nd room double decked and the 3rd under construction. The layout has been revised for operations and expanded over the past 10 months. The setting is Colorado with mines and bridges loosely based on the Old South Park Line with corresponding towns. A large amount of dual gauge mainline has been added. JMRI is used for dispatching from an office created in a mockup steam locomotive cab. JMRI cell phone or Digitrax Simplex throttles are used. The track in the first room is hand layed and the 2nd and 3rd rooms are MicroEngineering. Locomotives are Blackstone and brass for narrow gauge Bachmann for std gauge. Seven AP awards were earned with the layout including Prototype Modeler. An onboard video control system is currently being installed to allow remote location operation.

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.