WILTON “TONY” LASH’S grandfatherbrought him to the Roanoke, Va., rail-road yards in the middle of the night.

Despite the hour, the 11-year-old was wide awake,energized by the prospect of a cab ride in a mam-moth Norfolk & Western Y6b steam locomotive.

As he climbed into the cab, Tony looked backbeyond the tender of the hissing 2-8-8-2 locomo-tive. The yard lights illuminated a seemingly end-less string of empty coal hoppers, waiting to beginthe climb up the Appalachian Mountains to theWest Virginia coal mines at Bluefield.

Soon the train was deep into the mountains.“Look out the window, lad, and tell me what

you see,” commanded the engineer. The man hada presence about him that demanded respect, soyoung Tony complied. His grandfather, the Y6b’sfireman, made room for Tony at the cab window.

“I don’t see anything, sir. It’s still dark,” Tonyreplied to the engineer as the locomotivepounded steadily up the grade.

Hearing the answer he expected, the engineerthen reached up and pulled the whistle cord. Themournful sound reverberated from mountainsideto mountainside.

“Look out the window again, son, and tell mewhat you see now.”

All over the mountains, lights turned on in thehomes of coal miners. The sound of the locomo-tive whistle served as their alarm clocks.

“The whole mountain looked like a Christmastree,” Tony recalls.

Is it any wonder, with memories like this, thatTony Lash would eventually build a layout mod-eled after West Virginia coal mining? A layout thatclimbs so high that you need a ladder to see someof the mountaintop scenes? A layout that show-cases huge steam locomotives and long coal drags?A layout with mountainsides blanketed with trees?

Tony’s spectacular layout, built in a commercialbuilding that afforded him the ample space heneeded, is the culmination of dreams instilled inhim during his youth decades earlier. It’s Tony’sversion of the realistic layout many a postwar boyimagined as his 2-6-2 with its 3-car consist racedaround the loop of track on the living room floor.

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1. LEFT: An MTH Premier Y6b no. 2197, modeled after the reallocomotive Tony rode as a youth, rolls past a switchtower built bymaster builder Howard Zane, one of Tony’s many hired hands.2. RIGHT: The Y6b and an MTH Premier J-class no. 611 cross bridgeson the hills of Tony’s layout.

Big doesn’t begin to describe Tony Lash’s MTH layout

by Dick Christianson / photos by William Zuback

Of course, even the owner of such agrand layout started much more mod-estly. Tony’s postwar upbringing has afamiliar ring.

A small start to big dreamsAs was the case with most budding

model railroaders of the 1940s and’50s, Tony’s toy train dreams were big-ger than the family budget would allow.Instead of the full-blown Lionel depart-ment store display layout Tony askedfor at Christmastime, he found a morebasic Lionel starter set under the tree.But that was okay; it was a start.

As a youth, using money earned bydelivering newspapers, Tony steadilyaccumulated Lionel trains. As an adult,he has spent a lot of time and moneybuilding an impressive collection, start-ing with postwar Lionel, particularly thefirm’s big O gauge locomotives and6464 series boxcars. When LionelTrains Inc. produced Standard Ofreight cars, Tony began buying themand has a complete collection.

In the postwar O categories, Tonysays his collection is “about 75 percentmint and 25 percent like new.” All ofhis Standard O is mint. Tony regardshis Lionel collection as complete andisn’t actively looking to add to it, otherthan to upgrade.

When MTH Electric Trains camealong in the mid-1990s, Tony becamehooked on the detail, the quality, andthe quantity of MTH’s Premier locomo-tives and cars. In five years, Tony hasput together an essentially completecollection of MTH Premier Line pieces,including at least one of each locomo-tive and car that has multiple roadnumbers. He has all of the cars in mintcollections (many in multiples for oper-ation on the layout) and is missing onlyabout 10 locomotives (most notably theearliest Pennsy F3 A-B-A). Actually, hehas examples of all the road names andis missing only certain cab numbers.

Much more than a collectorWhile Tony is without question a

train collector, if you haven’t alreadynoticed, he’s also a toy train operator.

His adult layout-building periodbegan after he returned from Vietnam,got married, and had children. Overthe years, Tony has built a half-dozentoy train layouts in addition to his origi-nal childhood layout.

“They weren’t anything like my cur-rent layout,” Tony acknowledged.“They were the typical flat tabletop lay-outs with milk cars, cattle cars, coalramps, and the (switch) tower with theguys going up and down the stairs.”

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3. The modern MTH Premier diesels are the center of attention in this photo, but take a while to checkout the structures, figures, trackwork, details, and trees that contribute to the overall impact of TonyLash’s striking layout.

4. Lehigh Valley F3 no. 510 meets Baltimore & Ohio GP9 no. 6603 at a crossing just outside Robertsdale.Beyond the sound and motion of the locomotives, flashing signals by Memphis Signal Digitals add life tothe scene. Howard Zane scratchbuilt the crossing tower.

He’s even gone through the HOphase. Sometime in the mid-1980s,Tony became interested in Märklin, pri-marily because of its digital commandcontrol system. He likes operating thesystem so much he still has a largeMärklin HO layout in the basement ofhis suburban Washington, D.C., home.The lack of American prototypes haskept him from going much farther withthe scale and brand, however.

It’s clear that technology intriguesTony. While he’s generally a product ofthe postwar era, in mind and spirit he’sa hi-tech kinda guy.

His original plan was to install theLionel TrainMaster Command Controlsystem on the layout. Not totally satis-fied with this system and put off by itsincompatability with MTH locomotives– his layout’s primary motive power –Tony used his layout as a test track, try-ing just about every electronic gadgetand control system on the market, inhopes of finding the right system. Atlast, he’s convinced he’s found it.

Because of Tony’s personal relation-ship with Mike Wolf and others at

MTH, and because Tony’s layout inCapitol Heights, Md., is not far fromMTH’s headquarters, the firm’s engi-neers used his extensive layout to testand demonstrate MTH’s recentlyannounced digital control system.Thus, Tony has seen the system inaction under operating conditions andis brimming with enthusiasm. (Tony’slayout served as background for manyof the scenes on the video MTH pro-duced to announce the new control sys-tem.) Tony is especially pleased withthe “cruise control” feature that keeps atrain moving at constant speed ongrades – a great feature to have on amountain-railroading layout. And heconsiders the new digital sound pack-age a “vast improvement” over the orig-inal ProtoSounds.

A “real” big layoutTony’s layout is enormous – even

downright overwhelming at first sight.It may very well be the largest privatelyowned three-rail O gauge layout.

The layout occupies an area just shyof 3,000 square feet (45 by 65 feet) ofpreviously unused office space inTony’s 14,000-square-foot building. (Ifyou’re wondering, Tony is the owner

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8

69

1

4

14

7 23

5

10

Passenger terminal (under construction)

Entrance

Powerplant

City

Hershey’s

Carnival

Control panel

Cover

Company town

Coalmine

Not to scale - overall size 45'-0" x 65'-0"

Track color for route identification only

5. With Republic Mine gleaming in thebackground at twilight, the N&W J and herpassenger consist roar through Zanesville. Theminers are finishing a hard day’s work andprobably couldn’t scratch together train fareanyway – as Tennessee Ernie Ford used to sing,they owe their soul to the company store!

Illustration by Robert Wegner

and CEO of Consolidated Waste Indus-tries, a full-service trash removal andpaper recycling company that servesthe Washington area.)

But the layout’s impact goes wellbeyond size. It’s as finely scenicked anddetailed as any scale layout you’ll see.Apart from the blackened third railthat runs down the middle of thenearly one linear mile of stainless steelGarGraves track and the 86 Ross Cus-tom Switches (mostly nos. 4, 6, and 8),this is a scale model railroad.

But it’s still a toy train layout, andTony has no desire to “remove the cen-ter rail.” He has no interest in waybillsor point-to-point operation. “I’m just arunner,” he says without apology. Hesees the layout as a way of getting awayfrom the stress of life. Though the lookof the layout might suggest otherwise,Tony is not an O scaler bent on scalefidelity: He’s a true hi-railer whodoesn’t take either himself or his scaletendencies too seriously.

A plan and hired handsTony bought the property for his

business in 1994. In the back of hismind he had a vision of the type ofmountainous layout he wanted tobuild. Coincidentally, 1994 was about

the same time Mike Wolf began to offerbig, powerful steam locomotives capa-ble of climbing steep grades with longstrings of coal hoppers in tow. Perhapsthis layout was simply destined to be!

Long before it all came together,though, Tony had been track planning.He’d closely examine the track plans inModel Railroader magazine and set asideideas he liked and knew he could incor-porate in his own layout someday. Witha chunk of his warehouse at his dis-posal, he began to fit all those ideasinto one layout.

Tony knew he wanted four mainlineloops big enough that he could run twotrains on each. He also wanted the lay-out to feature a general freight yardthat could hold plenty of cars, an 8- or9-foot-long engine-service terminal, a13-stall roundhouse with a turntable bigenough to accommodate the longeststeam engines, and a coal mine withplenty of storage tracks. He envisionedtrains rolling through tunnels, alongrock faces, and over high bridges.

Knowing so clearly what he wanted,Tony didn’t need much time to com-plete his track plan on paper. Nor didit take him long to realize that thiswasn’t like any other layout he had everbuilt and that there was no way, even

with the help of son Duke, that hewould be able to build it during his life-time. The job would simply be too big.So, he began looking for help.

Tony again turned to the pages ofModel Railroader and found an ad fromCustom Model Railroads of nearby Bal-timore. He invited owner VernonPeachey to take a look at his plan andthe large room.

By late 1996 Vernon and his son Jor-dan were at work in their shops build-ing sections of benchwork. Then, inmid-1997 they began delivering bench-work modules, bringing them inthrough a large window that had beenremoved beforehand. “When all of themodules were in, they fit like a glove,”says Tony. Theoretically, the layout issectional and could be moved toanother site at some point, “though itwould play havoc with the scenery.”

With the benchwork assembled, Ver-non and Jordan put all of the roadbedin place, laid the track and switches,and created the enormous scratchbuilttrestles that greet you as you enter thelayout room. When all of the track wasin place and temporarily wired, Tonyran trains over the line and Vernonmade adjustments. Today, the trainsrun smoothly and quietly around the

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Some of the layout builders andmanufacturers gathered in front of thecontrol panel the day we visited tophotograph the layout.They are (front row, left to right): SteveBrenneisen of Ross Custom Switches, KenYoung of Scale Model Railroads, VernonPeachey of Model Railroad CustomBenchwork, Gregg Spence of Del-AireProducts, Andy Edleman of MTH ElectricTrains, Tony Lash, Sharlain and BobChapman, contract layout builders.(Back row, left to right): John Cassel ofScale Model Railroads, Jordan Peachey ofModel Railroad Custom Benchwork,master builder Howard Zane, TerryChristopher of Custom Signals, and RichFoster of MTH Electric Trains.

Helping hands

layout, a testament to excellent bench-work and trackwork.

Power packedTony’s original plan was to control

the trains using Lionel’s TrainMastersystem, so he didn’t need any blocks onthe mainline loops. With that as thecase, Bill Fosbrook, a retired electricianwho had helped Tony wire a “tempo-rary layout” some months earlier (seesidebar on page 67), strung four loopsof 10 gauge wire under the layout, emp-tying four 500-foot rolls “pretty quick.”Then he ran other colors of no. 10 wirefor eventual use with signals, buildinglighting (of different intensity), switchlamps, and other electrical needs.

Knowing that he was going to wirethe layout this way, Bill had VernonPeachey drop stranded no. 14 wireabout every 6 to 8 feet along the mainline. Bill actually ended up using onlyevery other drop, so the loops havefeeders every 12 to 14 feet. As soon asthey began running trains, it was clearthere was absolutely no voltage dropanywhere on the layout, even at thepoint farthest from the transformers.

At the control panel, Tony has threeMTH Z-4000 transformers devotedstrictly to powering the endless track.

Four handles control the mainlineloops, one handle controls trains in thefreight yard/roundhouse/diesel facilityarea, and one handle controls the yardat the coal mine. Three Lionel ZWtransformers are used as auxiliarypower elsewhere on the layout.

Because the layout features a varietyof light levels (bright streetlights as wellas dimly lighted interiors in the housesat the coal mine’s “company town”),Tony bought two Edwards multi-tapcommercial-grade transformers (typi-cally used for fire alarm systems inapartment buildings). The constantvoltage taps on these transformers arein 4-volt increments between 4 and 24volts. The equipment easily handles thehundreds of light bulbs on the layout.

And then there’s the power neededfor animation, including scenesenhanced by products from Willard’sAnimation. All over the layout thingsare happening. The river at the front ofthe layout appears to cascade off a cliffby virtue of a light behind the translu-cent waterfall reflecting off a rotatingdrum of aluminum foil. The propellerspins on the treetop-skimming bi-plane.Among those hard at work are trackworkers welding along the right-of-way,front-end loader operators lifting sheets

of plywood in the lumberyard, a back-hoe operator digging up a street, and acity worker painting a light pole. Fire-works go off at the amusement park,conceived and designed by Tony’s sonDuke. The park is loaded with ani-mated rides. Many of these animatedproducts came with a 110-volt powercord attached, so Bill had to runRomex cable and install electrical boxesunder the layout according to localelectrical code.

Finally, Bill needed to supply DCpower to the electro-pneumatic valvesthat control the layout’s 86 Del-Aireswitch mechanisms. For that he choseone of LGB’s “Jumbo” transformers.

Once the main wiring was com-pleted and trains were running, Bill’sjob routine changed. Now he had toprovide interior lighting for the dozensof exquisite large and small structuresthat began arriving from the workshopsof master builders Howard Zane, ErnieKorber, Alan Graziano, and others. Thescratchbuilt structures (many of themwith interior detailing) are spectacular.The interior lighting simply calls atten-tion to them – and deservedly so.

Today, with most buildings con-structed and in place on Tony’s layout,Bill shows up once a week or so to do

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6. Vernon Peachey built the benchwork underTony’s layout and kept building upward, toppingoff his efforts with spectacular wooden trestles.This spliced-photograph view of the layout, takenat the entrance, still can’t cover the full width ofthe track plan or show the detailed rear portionsof the layout.

SOMETIMES RAW numbers helpdefine something that’s simplytoo big to capture in photos.Tony Lash’s layout:• Occupies close to 3,000 square

feet, twice the size of the typical starter home and larger than the average-sized home.

• Utilizes nearly 1 mile of track (a real mile, not a scale mile!) incorporating 86 switches.

• Contains 7,000 trees.• Is powered by three Z-4000

transformers, three ZW trans-formers, two commercial transformers (for lighting) and one LGB “Jumbo” transformer (for switch machines).

• Has employed more than a dozen helpers professionally at various times for more than three years.

How big is big?

whatever troubleshooting is necessaryand, if there’s time left over, to “just sitback and run trains.”

Blanketing the sceneryLike the wiring, the subject of

scenery deserved some careful consid-eration, given the endless scale acresthat such a large layout covers. Natu-rally, Tony wasn’t adverse to hiring peo-ple with that special know-how. Thistime, the help found him.

Rick Sester of Memphis Signal Digi-tal had been doing work on Tony’s lay-out when he happened to meet friendsBob and Shar Chapman at a scalemodel show in Timonium, Md. TheChapmans are early retirees who travelthe country in an RV doing contractwork on people’s train layouts. Richtold Bob, “You really need to meetTony Lash, and you really need to seehis layout.”

During his visit, Bob talked to Tonyand, seeing the traditional hardshellconstruction under way, told him, “Youknow, Tony, that’s pretty slow going.There’s another way you can do this.”

And that’s how the Chapmans foundthemselves working three to four days aweek for the next few months.

Bob’s “other way” involves foam ribsupports and a polyurethane resinblanket called Geodesic Foam that isattached to those supports. The “ribs,”made of 11⁄2-inch insulating foam cut tothe hillside’s contour with a serratedsteak knife, are attached to the bench-work with hot glue. Bob then appliesthe blanket, or “skin,” over the ribs insheets as large as 2 by 3 feet. That’s whythe process goes so fast!

Geodesic Foam, available from Brag-don Enterprises of Georgetown, Calif.,is created from a two-part chemicalreaction that is sandwiched betweenother materials. This “sandwich” con-sists of bubble wrap on one side andfiber glass screen door material andclear plastic wrap (similar to dry-clean-ing bags) on the other. While thefreshly mixed expanding foam in themiddle is still soft, Bob lays the flexibleblanket over the ribs. He staples oneedge to the benchwork, then folds backthe blanket onto the ribs, which arecovered with hot glue to permanentlyadhere the supports to the blanket.Within a half hour, the foam hardensand the blanket becomes hard likefiber glass. “It’s a great way to make alot of progress quickly on a large layoutlike Tony’s,” Bob says.

Shar employed another shortcut thatcovered ground quickly. First, she cut 1by 2-foot sheets of kraft paper and laid

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7. Big power meets in the mountain. Check out the lighted cab interior of the MTH Mallet no. 2197; thesmoke pouring out of Chesapeake & Ohio Allegheny no. 1604 is impressive too.

8. The diesel fueling facility stands directly underneath high-power lines from the power plant nearby.Arttista figures are arranged in mini-scenes everywhere around the layout.

it on a flat surface. Then she tore thou-sands of thumbnail-sized pieces ofWoodland Scenics coarse foam clusters(in three shades of green) and hot-glued the pieces to the paper. Finally,Bob hot-glued these foliage sheets tothe hardened Geodesic Foam base.

The technique is great for verticalsurfaces, of which there are many onTony’s layout, because it’s almostimpossible to get foliage to cling to ver-tical faces. One drawback: “It’s quiteexpensive,” Bob acknowledged, “butTony didn’t have a problem with that.What’s important is that it worked!”

Everywhere, rocks and treesIf any naturally oriented scenery

materials stand most prominently onTony’s layout, it has to be the mountainrocks and trees. These elements deservespecial attention.

For the many rock faces in themountainous areas of the layout, Bobborrowed rubber rock molds fromstructure builder Howard Zane andpoured a clear resin into them. Each

resulting casting is very thin – onlyabout 1⁄8-inch thick – and remains flexi-ble while it’s still warm. Before eachcasting hardened, Bob hot glued it inplace along one edge, then bent andshaped it to match the contour of thesurface beneath it – even aroundcurves. Then he hot-glued the otheredges in place. When the casting setabout a half-hour later, it became ahard piece of plastic.

While the process is certainly aneasy, ideal way to do rocks, there is adrawback: Paint will not adhere directlyto the slippery resin surface. So oneextra step is necessary. Like an artisticpainter prepping a canvas, Bob had toapply artist’s gesso (available, naturally,at art supply stores) to make the surfacemore friendly to paint.

Bob’s paint of choice is powderedtempera in appropriate colors. OnTony’s layout, he brushed it onto therock surface, which by virtue of thegesso, held the pigment. Then helightly misted it with water and gentlyspread the paint with a soft brush.

When that had dried, Bob drybrushedthe rock surfaces with white to bringout the contours and crevices. Thepainting process took some time, butwith excellent results.

And then there are the trees – morethan 7,000 of them.

The majority of the primary, front-of-the-layout variety trees are from kitsmade by Jane’s Trains and assembledby Bob’s daughter, Debra Barnhart,and Rick Sester’s wife, Camille. Thekits, commercially available under the

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9. Here’s the motive power lineup (from left toright, MTH unless otherwise indicated): WVP&P Co.Shay no. 12; NYC J-1e Hudson 4-6-4 no. 5344;Southern Ry. Crescent Pacific 4-6-2 Ps-4 no. 1396;N&W J no. 611; Lionel Hudson no. 5344; SouthernPacific 4-8-4 Daylight no. 4449; Empire StateExpress Hudson no. 5429; SP Cab-Forward AC-6 4-8-8-2 no. 4126; CNJ Blue Comet Pacific no. 833; UPChallenger 4-6-6-4 no. 3982; N&W Y6b Mallet 2-8-8-2 no. 2197; DM&IR Yellowstone 2-8-8-4 no. 227;and, dwarfed by its neighbors, N&W 0-8-0 no. 244(Rail King). On the turntable, earning its name isthe Big Boy, UP 4-8-8-4 no. 4012.

product name “Forest in a Flash,” eachyield three or four trees and come in avariety of colors. Naturally, the assemblyof these trees took time, but wheninstalled on the layout, they lookedgreat. The women also built hundredsof Woodland Scenics trees of all sorts.

As the assembled trees showed up atthe layout, Bob applied a little glue tothe base of the trunks and insertedeach one into the foam blankets – bythe thousands.

One nice touch Bob has added maynot be apparent until it’s brought toyour attention. He planted lots oforange and yellow trees at the higherelevations, suggesting an early fall inthe mountains. Any Train CollectorsAssociation member who has drivenwest through the Appalachians on thereturn trip from the October York meetknows that’s the way it looks.

People and other piecesWith the scenery and trees in place,

all of the figures, vehicles, signs, andother details entered the scene.

Tony credits long-time friend JohnCassel (he built Tony’s HO scaleMärklin layout) with most of the detailwork. He designed and completed thenumerous mini-scenes on the layout; hepositioned the several thousand dollars’worth of Arttista figures in just the rightplaces; and he beautifully ballasted sev-eral scale miles of track.

Tony is effusive in praise of John’sefforts. “He was the one with the vision.He designed the cities, the placementof roads, streets, and details. He madethe layout come to life,” says Tony.

Finally, the last bit of trackside detailhad to be accounted for. The intricate,brass, operating O scale trackside sig-nals (accurate for the N&W) and cross-ing gates were built by Terry Christo-pher of Custom Signals, Poughkeepsie,N.Y. Rick Sester, from Memphis DigitalSignal, comes to the scale show at Tim-onium, Md., three times a year, andduring those visits Rick stops in atTony’s to install computer chips andcircuitry for the signals and gates.According to Tony, Rick deserves a lotof credit because “it’s a long, hard,tedious job.” And there’s still work tobe done.

As you look at the layout, it appearsto be pretty much complete. Tony andhis crew have created a masterpiece inO. The vegetation is thick, the struc-tures are lighted, there are figureseverywhere, and the layout runs like aclock. But as we all know, no layout isever complete. And that’s true ofTony’s, though he says “it’s about 97percent complete right now.”

Here are some things to watch for.The passenger yard has track and bal-last, but it’s lacking the massive termi-nal Tony envisions, complete with inte-rior detail and lighting and hundreds

of people departing and arriving. Tonyalso looks forward to installing theMTH digital command control system.And who knows what enhancementsthat will bring? And then there aremore details and rust on the rails,maybe some passing sidings whereverpossible, and the completion of the sig-nal system.

Finally – though Tony is noncom-mittal, calling it “kind of a pipe-dreamright now” – rumors are circulatingamong the help that plans are in theworks for expansion into the adjacentoffice area. We’ll keep you posted. T

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10. What’s that Union Pacific DD40AX doing here?Pretend it was making a PR visit out East.Likewise, the locomotive’s engineer is probablywondering what that low-flying, dive-bombingbi-plane is doing. Crop dusting? Whatever therationale, the elements make for an interesting,colorful scene. The spinning propeller is just one ofdozens of animations on Tony’s layout.

IMAGINE A LAYOUT consisting ofdozens of sheets of plywood, threemonths of electrical work, and amaze of track to keep a fleet oflocomotives hard at work. To most,that’d be a dream layout. To Tony,it was a short nap.

During the period CMR was atwork on his permanent layout’sbenchwork, Tony became impa-tient. After all, there he was with allthat space and lots of trains, butnowhere to run them. What to do?Why not build a “temporary” layoutin the meantime?

So he called the lumberyard andhad workers deliver 48 sheets of 4by 8 plywood. In no time he hadbuilt a huge flattop layout usingLionel tubular track. It was enoughto keep Tony going until the reallayout arrived.

While that layout’s longevitypromised to be brief, it wasn’texactly a shoddy, makeshift project.Consider the efforts of one manwho made it work.

At one point, the temporary lay-out came up with a dead short thatTony couldn’t track down, so look-ing for help he called his friendlyhobby shop in Washington, D.C. Inturn, the hobby shop’s owner putTony in touch with one of its regu-lar customers, Bill Fosbrook, aretired electrician.

“I’ve got a temporary layoutthat’s got a short. If you’d comeover I’d really appreciate it,” Tonysaid. Bill didn’t see any harm in vis-iting and was glad to help out, so hepacked up his tools and drove toCapitol Heights to see what hecould do. It didn’t take him long tofind the all-too-common culprit: afaulty section of track (dogged by a

paper insulator with a hole in it,allowing the metal ties and track tomake contact).

With the problem solved, the twospent a little time chatting. Tonydescribed to Bill what he had inmind for the short-term layout –some additional sidings, someuncoupling tracks, operating acces-sories – and asked if Bill would beinterested in helping him. That was

in January 1997. Bill spent the next-three months wiring Tony’s “tem-porary” layout.

A couple months later, Bill cameinto the same hobby shop while theowner was talking to Tony on thetelephone about a new locomotivethat had just arrived. Bill took thephone and told Tony he’d be gladto drop it off for him. Tony wasglad to get the offer and said,“Good, I was going to call you tocome over and look at somethinganyway.” When Bill got there, the“temporary” layout was gone andmuch of the benchwork for the newlayout was in place. Bill took overthe wiring at that point and hasshowed up for work at least once aweek since mid-1997.

You call this temporary?

While CMR was at work on his

permanent layout, Tony

became impatient. So he had

48 sheets of 4 by 8 plywood

delivered. In no time he had

built a huge flattop layout.