Dec 23, 2001 to Jan 23, 2002 Many of us began with O gauge and I will admit to still having a spot in my heart for it, especially at Christmas time when memories come flowing back. This site actually offers two for the price of one The Pennsylvania & Midwestern O Gauge railroad (the host site), is in an 8' x 10' space in the basement. It was started during Christmas of 1997. The layout has no real theme, it is just a "for fun layout." It has all MTH RealTrax, with the single mainline O-72 diameter and the inside loop, sidings and switches all O-31 diameters In addition to the Penn-Midwest, take the link to Tony Lash's layout while you are there. They are both O gauge and quite different from each other. To give you a feel for both, I've included one photo from each site. Relax! It's the holidays. Sit back and enjoy the Penn-Midwest and Tony Lash's layouts! Jan 23 to Feb 21, 2002 The Sun City Central Railroad is the "HO" Scale Modular Layout operated by the Sun City Center Model Railroad Club in sunny Florida. Each four-foot module is the handiwork of an individual club member. Each module or set of modules tells a complete story. The modules are connected together in several sequences that fit the display space available; here they are a series of "snapshots" of scenery along the route. The Sun City Central covers the territory from the coal-producing region of Pennsylvania and West Virginia to the citrus belt of Florida and serves many towns cities and industries. The time period depicted is circa 1955, thus there are still some steam engines in operation as well as diesels. Oh, and, yes, that IS a tree growing in the hopper car. Let's take a tour of the Sun City Center Model Railroad Club Feb 21 to Mar 22 You say that you don't have enough room for a layout? Well, many British and European modelers don't have much either. A case in point is our next Webmaster's Choice. As a part of this month's choice, you will get photos of two other layouts as well and all take up a small amount of space. Nick Gurney says, "Welcome to Dyserth Road, the name of my "OO gauge" small space modern image railway. Having had large continuous run layouts in the past my interest has now shifted to building smaller portable layouts. Dyserth Road was built to satisfy my interest in modern diesel and electric traction and measures 8 foot by 2 foot and is fully portable, it consists of a diesel fueling point and stabling sidings for both diesel and electric locomotives. A small wagon repair depot is also present to add some extra operational interest. I now have ideas for my next two projects of which one will be a minimum space layout to prove you really don't need much space to build a convincing model railway. Ok, all that said, let's visit the Dyserth Road Mar 22 to Apr 23 Last month, we featured small railroads. This month is a layout with some 850 feet of track 161 turnouts, and more than 50 pictures that illustrate seven towns as well as the layout itself. The HO-Scale KADE Layout, depicts the fictional KADE railroad and B&O trackage in the western, mountainous region of West Virginia during the steam-diesel era of the early 1950's. This combination offers a variety of equipment and industrial possibilities. The era is the early 1950's when both steam and diesels share the track. Passenger service is still alive and freight trains serve the local industries before trucks! A major industry is coal handling in all of its forms with hopper cars out-numbering all other types. Rural timber operations continue but are waning. Ok, all that said, let's visit the KADE Railroad Apr 23 to Apr 23 NOTICE! - I put this site up and Tripod immediately shut it down due to excessive bandwidth usage. It is viewable if there are not too many viewing at once. I received an e-mail from Marty about his Madison Railroad. I took a look and found a web site loaded with photos. It has Switching, Photography, Layout photos, Prototype photos, Car Exchange car photos and even High Rise building construction. Marty considers the layout a "Switching Layout" with the setting placed sometime during the transitional period in the mountains along with urban areas for interest. The mountains were named the "Connetquot Mountains" and the two cities are called "Connetquot" and "Jefferson". He has elected to model the transitional period as it allows him to run Steam and Diesel when both were operating on the same rails. However, Diesels are his predominate motive power. Although the site is a little slow loading, it is well worth a vist. So lean back and enjoy a visit to Marty's Madison Railroad. Apr 23 to May 23 Roger Kujawa sez. . . "The AGW is my freelanced HO scale railroad set in the 1980's. It is a 22,000 mile-long carrier stretching from the North Atlantic Seaboard and Canada to the Missouri River and Gulf of Mexico. The AGW has a service area similar to a Conrail, Chicago North Western and Missouri Kansas Texas merger. I model in the 1980's to 1990's time frame. I wanted to model a railroad that could set standards in the industry and compete even in the 1990's era of mega-merger railroads." The modeled portion is a main line that runs from Chicago's Arrowhead Yard, skirts the western suburbs and follows the Fox River north into Wisconsin. The mainline run is 250 feet between the Port of Milwaukee and the Arrowhead Yard and is dispatched using Direct Traffic Control with five intermediate passing sidings. Major industries include the Port Of Milwaukee, Miller Brewing, Champion Paper, Cargill, Kellogg's, ADM, US Precision Glass, Wisconsin Electric and numerous quarries. Sit back, relax and enjoy a visit to Roger's Atlantic and Great Western Railway Co. May 23 to June 23 I have been told by some that O Gaugers aren't 'real' modelers (yeah, right). Well, I have never bought that and after you see this layout, you won't either. [Note: some older browsers may have to disable Java and JavaScript to load the first page] Larry sez… "My journey into O Gauge railroading has been a relatively recent one, having been in this hobby for a short five years. Our first train set arrived here for my son's fifth birthday. This was a Lionel Union Pacific Express Set. While this held David's interest for a short while, the figure eight configuration soon became a little dull. This little starter set gave birth to our current O Gauge empire. The current "Erehwon and Saguaro Railroad" is my attempt at modeling a freelance Hi-rail layout. It covers the geographic areas of Arizona, Colorado and on into the Midwest. This is a steam/diesel transition layout set loosely in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Steam locomotives are still in operation, but they are being quickly being overtaken by first generation diesels. The road names of Union Pacific, Denver and Rio Grande and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe dominate. While the railroad is of course fictitious, I have attempted to bring as much realism to the layout in the space available to me. This is what Hi-rail is all about, operating toy trains in a scale environment." And, WOW, what an environment! Let's take a trip to Larry's Tracks and Trains and ride the Erehwon and Saguaro Railroad.