The Toronto Model Railroad Club has closed its doors after 67 years in the same location. I regret that I never got to see it in person, or the Canada Central in Montreal, which also now is gone.
It made me think: What would be on a model railroader’s bucket list of public layouts to see before you die? Which layouts would you want to see before you, you know, kick the bucket?
It’s not really the kind of thing I worry about either. I just hope to see as many cool layouts as possible for as long as possible. But if I never see another layout that’s been featured in a magazine, I won’t lose any sleep.
FWIW, my count of magazine featured layouts is seven or eight (not sure about one) and the number of “famous” layouts is three. I know that’s not exactly the question, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it
nothing I can really think of at the moment, there is a couple private layouts I’d like to see: the mud bay & southern, Tenino western Railroad, my Uncles new layout, and a couple others.
I am so thankful for the public layouts I HAVE gotten to see.
HO layout in 2nd floor of old Southern Pacific Houston, Texas station ca. 1955 with my dad
Delaware Gap layout at B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore in 1973
Minton Cronkite’s Santa Fe layout at Chicago Museum of Science and Industry in 1973
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
Model Railroader’s Clinchfield
Not a public layout but on at least three different versions of David Barrow’s Cat Mountain and Santa Fe in Austin, Texas.
Saw the layout
Got to run a train with wireless throttle and signals
Got to switch a yard
Got to run dispatcher’s panel controlling 6 or 8 trains by C-T-C.
And I got to see Greg Johnson’s N scale Houston-area Santa Fe layout, now long gone and replaced at least twice with different prototypes and different scale. I got to donate a little structure that fit the layout’s prototype scene,
and a corner of my structure once appeared in a Great Model Railroads photo shoot.
Layouts I would like to see someday…
NEW ENGLAND, BERKSHIRE & WESTERN (Rensaller Polytechnic Institute club)
And Dolkos’ Baltimore Harbor District. (private layout)
I don’t know about important enough to see before I die, but public ones I would like to see or think others should like to see are:
Greeley Freight Station Museum
Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
I’m certain there are more, but not off the top of my head.
Now private model railroads would be a huge list… Can’t even hope to get invited to all those. There are so many good ones right here on the Front Range.
Tough question…While not public the only two layouts I would like to vist is Tom Johnston’s L&IN and Joe Atkinson’s Iowa Interstate’s West End…Those two gentleman are top notch modelers.
I can’t think of any to put on my ‘bucket list,’ but there is one I saw a couple of decades ago.
What has happened to the South Shasta Lines? Mr Humann would be more than 100 now, and the most recent reference I found was dated 2008. Does anyone have more recent news?
I would like to get back to San Diego to get another look at the layouts in Balboa Park. Realistically, traveling that distance would be an ordeal, not a pleasure.
