In today's video, I visit a model railroad group in my area...
That's building a really cool layout for their model trains.
And after years of work on the project...
They're at the point where they can run trains on the layout.
But only a small portion of the layout has scenery in place...
For the fully realistic look...
And on the rest of the layout...
You have to use your imagination to visualize...
How cool this will be, years from now...
When it's fully complete.
Today I'm making my very first visit to The Tri Cities Model Railroaders.
Even though I've lived here in the Tri Cities In southeastern Washington state...
For over two years now...
And shot many videos of real trains running in our area...
As well as my G scale model trains running in the backyard of my new house...
It's taken two years to find a day when...
They were welcoming visitors and I had a day with nothing else to do.
But today's the day!
Once I started to look around at their layout It quickly became obvious...
How cool their layout already is...
Even though they've still got years more work ahead of them before it will finally be finished.
The group dates back to the 1960s and 70s...
But it wasn't until about seven years ago...
That they finally found the perfect building...
To build the big layout they've been dreaming about.
And this layout has three different levels...
An upper section...
A middle section...
And a lower section.
Just building the steel framing that supports these three levels...
Must have been a huge task.
The trains are able to get from one level of the layout to the other levels...
Because of this gigantic helix structure...
That the trains can use to slowly wind their way up or down to the other levels.
So, that makes this layout really huge...
Since after a train goes all the way around one of the levels...
It can then go up or down the helix to get to the other levels.
Notice how all the guys that are controlling the trains have cell phones in their hands.
This entire layout is set up for DCC...
And all the trains can be controlled by an app on the phone.
Now controlling the various track switches on the layout...
That's not done from the app.
Watch the lower left corner of the screen and you'll see one of the track switches in action here.
To change the position of one of those track switches...
Just look for one of these toggle switches right in front of it...
Or in some parts of the layout, like switchyards that have lots of switches...
You pull out a drawer where there are controls for all the track switches in that area.
Most days, they're busy working on building the layout, but...
Every Saturday from 10 AM until 2 PM...
They have some fun running trains on the layout...
And they invite the public to stop by and check it out.
The group owns quite a lot of rolling stock of their own...
But members also enjoy bringing their personal model trains in and running them on the layout.
I saw some really cool trains running on the layout the day I visited.
I love the Santa Fe warbonnet paint scheme...
So, this locomotive really caught my eye!
And it had matching passenger cars...
Including a spectacular dome car at the back.
These Amtrak locomotives caught my eye.
They had four of them.
Look at this model of a Great Northern Railway passenger train.
These matching rail cars are gorgeous.
It was the golden age of railroading...
Back when trains like this were a common sight in our country.
And of course, there were lots of freight trains running on the layout, too.
But my favorite of all the trains that I saw was this BNSF Heritage unit...
With a special paint scheme to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the railway.
The reason that I thought this locomotive was so cool...
Was that I actually shot some video of the real thing a couple of years ago with my drone...
At the BNSF yard in Pasco, Washington... my home town.
That's the real thing there.
The full-sized BNSF locomotive with the 25th anniversary paint scheme...
And here's the very realistic looking model...
Running on the layout of the Tri Cities Model Railroaders.
Very cool!
There's a very cool railroad bridge that crosses the Columbia River here in the Tri Cities.
I've used my drone many times to get video of trains going across that bridge.
The bridge sits fairly low along the river...
Too low for large ships to pass under it...
So, there's a section of the bridge that can be raised up...
If there's no train traffic...
And there's a large ship that needs to get through.
When I'm not shooting video of trains...
I'm shooting video of cruise ships...
And here's one coming down the Columbia River...
And after passing under our very cool looking Cable Bridge...
The ship goes under the section of the railroad bridge that has been lifted up out of the way.
Now the reason I mention all this is that the Tri Cities Model Railroaders...
Paid someone quite a lot of money to fabricate a pretty good model of that bridge.
And that model of the railroad bridge over the Columbia River...
Is someday going to be in a very important part of the layout...
It'll be the first thing you see when you come in the front door.
They're not quite ready to install that bridge yet.
But it's been built, and it's waiting for the right time to get installed.
I look forward to seeing that in place someday.
I should mention that these are all HO scale model trains here at the Tri Cities Model Railroaders...
Quite a bit smaller than the G-scale model trains...
That I normally make videos about.
But I was really impressed with what they've built here...
And I'm looking forward to stopping by again...
Every now and then over the coming years...
To watch their progress in completing all the fine details of the scenery.
By the way, in a corner of the building...
The Tri Cities Model Railroaders run a little shop...
Where you can purchase things that have been donated to the group.
And they have all sorts of things from scale model buildings...
To rolling stock...
And even quite a few locomotives.
I've got a thing for the Santa Fe Warbonnet paint scheme...
So, when I saw this Santa Fe locomotive they were selling for just $10...
I just had to bring that home with me!
Even though it's HO scale and all my trains are G scale.
It looks pretty cool sitting on a shelf in my office now.
And it will remind me to go back and visit the Tri Cities Model Railroaders again...
From time to time, over the coming years...
To see what kind of progress they're making on completing their very cool layout.
I'm putting links up on the screen right now...
To a few of the videos I've made over the years of real trains I've shot with my drone...
At various scenic places here in Southeastern Washington.
Click on one of thumbnails to watch another of my videos.