This is my new friend, Gavin.
He lives across the street from me in my new neighborhood here in Southeastern Washington...
And he likes model trains, so he's helping me set up tracks in my back yard.
I'm 63 years old... so, bending down like this and clipping sections of track together...
Is way easier for young Gavin than it is for me!
So, once we got the tracks all set up I was happy to sit in a chair and fly my drone...
To get some aerial views of the trains in action, while Gavin controlled the trains.
So, here we go...
I've attached a GoPro on to the back of a passenger car that's being pulled by one of my fastest locomotives...
It's Emily, from Thomas & Friends.
I love the sounds of the other trains as they pass Emily on the layout!
Here comes Dead Man's Curve...
Where I like to say that because the house is brand new, no one had died, yet!
You can see all that bare dirt on the right there.
I'll be planting trees there in the Spring.
And up ahead to the right of those six trees, and near that gate in the distance...
That's going to be a vegetable garden, next spring.
Gavin's mom is sitting in the shade up ahead on the right, in a red sweatshirt.
And Gavin and I are coming in to the camera's view here...
Enjoying a sunny 70 degree day in Washington.
Gavin's school was on a one week Fall break.
And I'm retired, so when I'm not working on landscaping my new yard...
I've got plenty of time to play with model trains now.
Let's switch to an aerial view from the drone's camera...
You can see that Emily is pulling the Jim Zim passenger cars.
And we're coming up to the 90 degree turn that I call Zim's Corner because of the red Zim sign there.
Notice the rocks that I've been placing by the spruce trees.
If you go back and find my previous couple of videos...
You'll see I hadn't gotten started yet at that point with covering the dirt with rocks.
I'm only part way there at this point with the rock project.
Eventually, in future videos, you won't see any bare dirt in my yard.
It will all be covered with rocks.
And I didn't buy those rocks.
They all came from right here.
At some point in history... I don't know if it was hundreds, or thousands, or millions of years ago...
The Columbia River used to flow over this spot, and it deposited these rocks everywhere.
Just dig down in to the soil anywhere in this neighborhood...
And there's all the river rock you could ever want for landscaping a big yard like this.
I'm going to freeze the video here at the future location of my vegetable garden.
Because I want to show you a clip from one of my previous videos.
Here's that same location a few weeks ago...
Look at that big pile of rocks I had them leave for me.
Those were all pulled right off of this property here before they put the lawns in.
I moved those rocks one wheelbarrow full at a time from that spot to over by the spruce trees.
Anyway, back to trains...
Here's the view from a GoPro mounted on top of the cab of the Coca Cola train.
We're not going to see as many trains passing by in this shot.
I think the only train that will be coming in the other direction on the other track is Emily.
Oh yeah, you can see her approaching in the distance there.
I shot this video three weeks in to October, so the sun was fairly low in the sky.
With the train and the camera pointed towards the sun now...
We get that little reflection from the lens, so...
Let's switch to a better view, from the drone.
Ah, yeah, much better!
Now, this was a little easier video for me to make, thanks to my young neighbor, Gavin.
With him running the trains, I was able to focus all my attention on the camera work...
And flying the drone.
G-scale track is incredibly expensive, about $7 a foot.
And because I've got such a big yard in this half acre lot our house sits on...
It takes about $2500 worth of track just to do one loop around the lawn...
And you can see I've got two sets of tracks here...
So, it set me back about $5000 just for the track to make this layout!
So, kids, enjoy the video... But don't expect your parents to get you something like this for Christmas!
You can see that Gavin has lined several trains up in a row here.
Which makes for a pretty cool looking shot, I think.
I'll fly the drone up ahead so we can focus on this next train for a minute.
It's a freight train, being pulled by an Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe steam locomotive.
This model is made by Piko, a less-expensive G-scale alternative to the better known LGB brand.
I like the sound effects that Piko builds in to their model steam trains...
Especially the steam whistle!
In the background there, you can see the house next door... which is still under construction.
If you hear any odd noises on the audio track of today's video...
It's probably a nail gun or a saw or some other construction noise from next door.
There I am. I have NOT fallen asleep in my chair!
I am just giving my full attention to the video display and the controls for the drone...
So I don't accidentally crash it in to anything.
Also running on the layout today, we've got the White Pass Steam train.
This is another one manufactured by Piko, with some fun built-in steam train sounds.
If you'd like to interact with me on Facebook...
Do a search on Facebook for a group called "Jim Zim On YouTube".
We've got almost 700 members in the group now.
It's basically just a group of people who are interested in my YouTube videos.
I post things about new videos I'm working on, before the video shows up on YouTube.
And it's a place where you can post things for me to see...
Like pictures of your model train layout...
Or videos of your kids impersonating my YouTube videos.
I always get a kick out of those!
Did you hear that sound of a sheep just now?
That was from the yellow freight car on that White Pass train.
Let me roll that clip back so you can listen to it again.
Listen carefully for it.
That yellow freight car is called a stock car, as in livestock.
The built in livestock sounds of the LGB-brand model are kind of fun!
I like this shot here, where you can see the shadow of the drone as it flies across the lawn...
And catches up with the White Pass Steam train.
Also in this shot here, you can see our hot tub...
My favorite feature of our new house!
People ask me why we didn't have a pool put in to our back yard...
Since we're on a big half acre lot.
I just enjoy a hot tub a lot more, and they're much less expensive.
The lawn is looking pretty good, but that's going to change very soon.
Although we were still enjoying really nice weather the day I shot this video...
The first freezing temperatures aere expected later this same week...
So that means we have to completely shut down the sprinkler system...
Have all the water drained out of the pipes...
And leave it shut off all the way until next Spring, so the pipes don't burst.
So, that lawn won't be getting any water for the next few months...
And in some of my future videos, I'm sure you'll see it go dormant and brown.
I'm not looking forward to that.
In California, we watered our lawns all year long, but...
Not here, where the freezing temperatures would damage the sprinkler pipes.
Watch the train coming up on the other set of tracks here.
It's Emily, but Toby has snuck up behind her...
And he's just a little faster than Emily, so he latched on for a double-header!
A common question I get a lot is: where can you buy model trains like these?
I buy most of mine from Trainworld.com
They've got a huge selection...
Prices that are, in most cases, lower than you will find not only in local train stores, but...
Also lower than basically all the other online train shops.
And they've been really nice to me.
They've seen my YouTube videos and they think I'm doing a good job...
Of showing the fun that you can have with model trains.
I'm going to send the drone straight up here, to give you an overview of today's layout.
It's pretty simple. Just two sets of tracks going all the way around that cement path that surrounds my lawn.
It took a lot of track to do that...
And I sure appreciated the help of my young neighbor, Gavin...
Who helped me set it all up, and who ran the trains while I did the camera work and flew the drone.
Life is good here at our new house in Southeastern Washington.
I'm loving my retirement.
It's great living close to my sister and her family...
I like all of my new neighbors...
It's been quite a life upgrade for me, here in recent months.
Sometime in the next couple of weeks...
I'm going to be working on a video tour of the inside of our new house...
Without any model trains running inside.
I did post a video tour a few months ago, but that was before we had actually moved in.
I want to give you an updated tour sometime soon, so you can see it with furniture.
Here's a sneak peek... showing the very cool motorized rolling shades.
That video tour should be coming up a few weeks from now.
Subscribe to my channel, so that you don't miss that or any of my other upcoming videos.
I'm Jim Zim. Thanks for watching!