Tour Details

Saturday October 31, 2026

Click on each layout to view complete details

AM Tours

10am - 1pm

Jeff Yeomans’s Chateau Valley Railroad

Walk in dog bone,225ft long double main line. Can be operated as a point to point with reversing loops on the ends or a continuous loop.

City: Braselton
Scale/Gauge: N
Jeff Yeomans

The Griggs & Southern Line

The Griggs & Southern Line is a 12-by-30-foot O gauge layout, handcrafted by a master modeler over nearly 20 years and once featured in Classic Toy Trains magazine. It models a variety of locations that the builder took inspiration from throughout his life. From the hand-built model of a Pennsylvania coal mine company to the navy drydock and a small town you could find here in North Georgia if you look hard enough. In 2025, the layout was carefully relocated to the Trainz showroom, where it was reassembled with new scenery, hidden details, and a few familiar faces, giving it a unique Trainz touch while preserving its original character. The layout spans multiple eras of railroading, with modern diesel locomotives sharing the rails with hardworking steam engines. Visitors can also spot an oil refinery, a World War II-era Balao-class submarine, the historic DeWitt Clinton, and a small tribute to the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862. As a freelance railroad, the Griggs & Southern Line showcases a diverse mix of railroads, offering something new to discover with every visit.

City: Flowery Branch
Scale/Gauge: O

Adam Preble’s D&H Chenango Division

The Delaware & Hudson acquired the NYO&W's Northern Division in the late 1940s. Today it operates as the Chenango Division; its Lake Ontario car ferry at Oswego and paper mill at Chenango have proven to be valuable additions to The Bridge Line's freight revenue.

City: Grayson
Scale/Gauge: HO
Adam Preble

John Wilson’s Saint Louis Gateway

The St. Louis Gateway is an N-scale layout representing operations on the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (TRRA) around SH Interlocking and Madison Yard during the late 1980s. The operations simulate traffic patterns through a major interlocking tower, SH Interlocking in Madison lL. During an operating session, the SH Tower operator will control the movement of about 50 trains from 5 different mainlines. About half of these movements are switching transfers from many different railroads in the St. Louis area (5 staging yards.)

City: Lilburn
Scale/Gauge: N
John Wilson

Ken Stinnette’s Old Reliable

The layout is freelance based on transition era L&N and NC&STL. It is a single-track main with passing sidings and about 20 sidings for industries for operations.

City: Duluth
Scale/Gauge: N
Kenneth Stinnette

Johnstown & Gerryville

John Travis’ Johnstown & Gerryville The Johnstown & Gerryville Railroad (J&G) is an HO scale bridge route between the PRR and B&O operating in western Pennsylvania. Using the mid-fifties as a back-drop, this fully sceniced basement-size layout runs both steam and diesel. This large basement layout featuring 2 levels with valance lighting and LEDs for buildings & street lighting. Aisles are wide and the fascia is curved to be operator and visitor friendly. We recently updated our lighting system with strings of LEDs to replace the compact florescent lights. The LEDs give us the capability to modify the lighting based on the time of day so we go from full daylight to night time in a controlled sequence. To top things off, we even added a lightning storm with great sound. Features include: beautiful scenery providing a realistic setting for operations; the CTC Signal system is Dispatcher controlled to keep traffic moving; two visible staging yards; realistic animation and six towns provide lots of operating interest; Digitrax DCC controls the trains using wireless throttles; antique telephones are used for communications and several contest winning structures make this a great layout. Search for ‘Johnstown & Gerryville’ on Youtube to view our current videos. Search for ‘Johnstown & Gerryville’ on Youtube to view our current videos.

City: Hoschton
Scale/Gauge: HO
John Travis

Mark Reed’s Little River Railroad and Lumber Company

This proto-freelanced layout captures a small segment of the Little River Railroad, depicting a 26-mile stretch of branchline and logging operations located in what is known today as the Great Smoky Mountains. The railroad is served by the Southern Railway, Knoxville and Augusta Division. Operations takes place in the mid- to late-1930s. The LRR&LC is inspired by the raffle layout of the same name won at the 2004 Piedmont Division's Train Show; the raffled section has been incorporated as the peninsula on the middle level. As a multi-level design, the lower and middle levels are joined using a double deck peninsula (with reversing loops on each level) at one end with walk around shelves to a helix at the other end. Continuous running of trains is possible between the lower and middle levels. On the upper section of the peninsula, a series of switchbacks connect the middle level of the peninsula to an around-the-wall shelf on the upper level. Three towns will be modeled in detail. On the lower level, the main industry in the town of Walland will include the Schlosser Tannery and the sawmill complex will dominate Townsend. Specifically, the Townsend Sawmill Complex will feature a fully detailed sawmill, power plant, planing shed, transfer shed with a tramway leading to the drying yard, sawdust burner, coaling station, water tower, and machine shop. Logging operations and the town of Elkmont will be modeled on the upper level. Finally, there will be seven bridges traversing the Little River that run throughout the landscape on all three levels. In addition to the logging operations, the Little River Railroad Company will transport loggers and their families to and from work sites and local towns. Finally, excursion trains will operate between Walland and Elkmont, bringing summer vacationers from Maryville and Knoxville to the cabins and cottages (known as Millionnaires Row) just north of Elkmont.

City: Peachtree Corners
Scale/Gauge: HO
Mark Reed

PM Tours

1pm - 5pm

Charles Millar’s Grand River Railway

The prototype Grand River Railway was an electrified interurban sub of Canadian Pacific. Layout based after dieselization. Setting based on actual locations where possible. Several scratch-built, kit-bashed structures, cars & locos. Some hand laid trackage. Multiple scenery techniques used, scratch-built rock castings, real coal, stones, dirt & sand. Super-elevated track. Numerous mini-scenes, figures, autos, trucks.

City: Buford
Scale/Gauge: HO
Charles Millar

Don Oltmann’s Conrail – South Jersey

History: The rail lines in South Jersey were built out in the mid 19th century, in large part to connect metropolitan Philadelphia with the shore towns from Atlantic City through Cape May. The completion of the Delaware River Bridge in 1928 eroded much of the passenger traffic causing the creation of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in 1933 and a consolidation of duplicate routes. The creation of Conrail in 1976 allowed a further consolidation. Set in the 1990s, my model railroad follows an alternate history with different lines being kept and discarded. Route description: The railroad starts at Pavonia yard in Camden and follows the old West Jersey and Seashore through Gloucester City, Woodbury, Vineland and Millville. The passenger route to Atlantic City diverges at Newfield and follows a WJ&S line abandoned in 1941. There is one branch from Woodbury to Paulsboro with interchanges to two shortlines, the Winchester and Western at Millville and SLRS at Paulsboro. Traffic and Industry: South Jersey is primarily a consuming region with goods and raw materials being delivered. The region does have sand mine, agriculture and petroleum refining the support outbound loads. Specific traffic and commodities were generally derived from a sample of actual traffic handled by Conrail. Industries modeled include a bakery, paper warehouse, beverage distributor, building supply, glass factory, power plant, food distributor, auto ramp, intermodal ramp, transload facility, refinery, and a model manufacturer. Operating the Layout: The layout is equipped with NCE DCC. Control of train movement is planned to be “verbal track warrants”. Car movement is controlled by a home-grown waybilling system using table based block and train assignment tables. Description of operations - Freight: Freight traffic arrives on a trio of road trains from “points west”. There are a pair of Conrail merchandise freights, one from Conway PA (Pittsburgh) and one from Allentown PA as well as a combined multilevel and intermodal train from Harrisburg PA. There is also a unit coal train serving the electric generating station in Vineland. The inbound traffic is classified at Pavonia and dispatched to serving yards at Millville and Paulsboro for local delivery. Passenger: All service is between Philadelphia and Atlantic City operates in push-pull mode. Amtrak operates non-stop trains into and out of Atlantic City. One train carries a through sleeper and diner from Chicago. New Jersey Transit operate commuter service between Atlantic City and Philadelphia. Equipment: The locomotive fleet follows standard Conrail practice and models from the era. High HP four and six axles on the road trains, Low HP four axles on the yard and local jobs. Cabooses are still used (because I like them and the operating complexity that comes with!). Freight car type and road are (more or less) appropriate for the commodities and era.

City: Lawrenceville
Scale/Gauge: HO
Donald Oltmann

Thomas Lloyd’s Norfolk and Western Railway – Pocahontas Division 1958

The layout focuses on coal operations, time freights, and passenger trains of the Norfolk and Western Railway through the coalfields of West Virginia during 1958. The N&W rostered steam locomotives until May 1960, so you can witness the final years of their use in regular service alongside the new diesels that eventually replaced them. 1958 is also the year that Management leased first-generation diesels from neighboring railroads (including the PRR, ACL, and RF&P) to help expedite dieselization, offering the railfan a chance to witness some interesting patch jobs and diesel consists among the N&W's own new diesels. The layout is designed for prototype operations to keep 12 people busy for 3.5 hours. A fast clock is used so that time freight and passenger trains are scheduled to depart based on the actual 1958 Time Table.

City: Norcross
Scale/Gauge: HO
Thomas Lloyd

Joe Surowiec’s Coal River & Southern RR

City: Stone Mtn
Scale/Gauge: HO
Joe Surowiec

Milt Burge’s Southern New England Central

This is a fictitious railroad that runs east-west in MA. The railroad is interchanged with four railroads, New York Central, New Haven, Maine Central, and Rutland, that bring cars to Palmer Junction which are staged to enter Beacon Park Yard. Beacon Park Yard stages cars for six branches, Milford Branch has two industries, Webster Branch has four industries, Jamesville Branch has one industry and team track, Saxonville Branch has two industries and team track, Warren Branch East, Pudister Village has four industries and Warren Branch West has three industries. Then there are eight trains that take the cars to the 18 industries and team tracks within those branches plus the engine facility. Operating Sessions can have seven operators to handle all positions. We have a total of 20 trains that take about three hours to complete. Positions on operating session; 1) Interchange yard. 2) Beacon Park. 1) Dispatcher. 3) operators

City: Snellville
Scale/Gauge: HO
Milt Burge

Thomas Gordon’s Seaboard Air Line – Birmingham Subdivision

This layout is a loose representation of the most mountainous portion of the Seaboard Air Line from Atlanta to Birmingham in the late summer of 1954. It is designed for lots of industry switching and has a number of seriously modified kits and scratch-built structures. The track is a combination of flex track and handlaid industrial sidings. Locomotive power is provided by first generation diesels – with some ‘retired’ SAL steam on the industrial switching area in Rockmart. The layout is a new one (replacing a similar layout at a different location, last on tour in 2018), but it is fully functional. Fascia and backdrops have been installed, and scenery work is in progress. The physical plant is controlled via a C/MRI system, with propulsion via EasyDCC. Since this current rendition of the layout is less than 6 years old, the automated signal system is fully functional via JMRI.

City: Norcross
Scale/Gauge: HO
Thomas Gordon

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All Day Tours

10am - 5pm

Cindy Dodd’s Soo the Milwaukee road

We have a turn table, woods with camp ground, rock quarry, logging facilities.

City: Grayson
Scale/Gauge: HO
Cindy Dodd