There’s no secret that I prefer N scale, but a quality model railroad is a quality model railroad regardless of scale.  While in Nashville for the World’s Greatest Hobby show I was invited to see the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railway, an HO scale layout.

It was a very interesting site as the place was swarming with model railroaders, and mostly N scale model railroaders no less!  Many of the folks from the show made the forty five minute drive outside of town to Nolensville Tennessee to see this wonderful layout.

This is a 5000 square foot layout in a space dedicated to trains.  It’s a rare treat to find such a layout these days and find a dedicated team working on it.   The line runs from Los Angeles to Ogden Utah and hits many interesting cities along the way.  It includes a brach line or two, and interchanges with other railroads.  Each end terminates into a large staging yard which allows a stead stream of trains to run in both directions.

You might ask why a west coast based railroad outside of Nashville?  Well, the answer is simple.  The layout is the brain child of Bill Hemrick (of Upper Deck baseball card fame) and it is what he wanted to model.  The layout isn’t generally open to the public, but the folks who run it are really friendly towards other model railroaders.  They do have the occasional open house, like the one I attended.  Alas, there is no web site for me to point you to for more information.

The group holds operations sessions twice a month, and in fact you can find car cards in various places around the layout.  With a layout this big it is easy to keep dozens of trains running, from high speed passenger trains to local freights delivering the goods to many industries.  With full signaling dispatchers at the computer are able to control every aspect of the layout, just like a real railroad might do.  It would take a very large group of people to run out of jobs to do on this railroad.

The YouTube video has a lot more great information about this railroad, and scenes of trains running.  I have to say, I am jealous of the sound that HO and larger scales enjoy.  It’s just not there in N scale yet, but it really is cool to hear...