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  • Thank you for providing great insight and knowledge of the model railroad hobby. I have a layout and would like to ask if you could share your knowledge of how to wire the LED lights for the police cars and emergency vehicles? I have subscribed to your channel and look forward to looking at all of your videos and more to come.

  • Wow! Great work! I see all kinds of interesting detail each time I run through this! A lot of little touches that make the whole effect convincingly authentic!

  • What no Genisis Athearns. The BNSFsd75mac's Genisis have got to be the best looking models ever, Your layout is what i need, just my wife wont have it in the cracker box we live in. Get some Stewart Hobbies F-7 In old Santa Fe colors, they have a great looking line up.

  • or any passenger i guess

  • you need amtrak

  • you should use the old engine facility as a bnsf facility to house bnsf atsf and bn locos's

  • quick question how long did this take u and total money

  • How do you stand your people up?

  • @timebombburger I use a tiny drop of GEL Super Glue. Hold it there for a second and BOOM!  Done

  • Hey dude I am wondering howmuch you charge for a Custom Paint Job. heres my email southerntrainman@yahoo.com My name is Radisson

  • cheers man. yeah i got given this thing was told it was a good start. but who knows. i just read that the brand life like got bought out by some other guys now. thanks for your advice. i know what brands to stay away from now.

  • What scale engines do you use? i have a cheap startup by "life like" it's the Iron Horse one. i am not sure whether it's one that i should stick with and use to upgrade or try the $199 one i saw in the shop. just not sure. have any advice you can give me?

    Josh

  • @rumjar1 Heres the deal. if you want to get into this hobby seriously well drop all that Life Like bullshit and step up to Athearns and so on. If you are not serious about the hobby just keep it and buy more. I do not fuck with Life Like, bachman or Tyco myself. I like Quality of quantity. but thats just me dawg. good luck

  • @MonsterRailroad whats wrong with bachman?

  • @nickfrank1 well nothing is wrong with Bachmann. I just personally do not buy Bachmann engines because I like better quality locos.

  • u did a great job wooooow

  • bro amazing job! Im just starting a layout in my basement. First timer. How long have you been working on that and how much money has it run you?

  • AWESOME they look great with weathering!

  • nice layout! you have items there id expect at a model railroad club! love it=)

  • cool layout & a lot of detail.

  • I have an accident scene too, except no LED's though.

  • wow man bloody terrific layout love it 10/10

  • i have the orange pair of clippers!!

  • Awesome building dude!

  • i hear you man track is fucking outrageous today....$700 bucks just in track alone to do my CN Van de water yard (which actually exists here in Windsor ON)

  • u should get a 4-6-6-4 up challenger

    up has one, it will look nice

  • make the BNSF without a motor into a dummy.

  • Nice locos.I tried to buy one from a guy at a train show he wanted $3,000 for it! He was kidding but those things are expensive. I looked on ebay and wanted $400 through 200 dollars! I wish those things were free! I would have a million of those.

  • I like BNSF also. Can u enter me in next years contest for christmas? It would be nice to get a nice BNSF locomotive.

  • Nice attention to detail.

  • Excellent layout!!! Looks like you've spent a ton of time, effort, and money on it. I hope you don't mind that I'm copying your idea of making a car wreck scene. I can't believe I didn't think about doing that before. With the flashing lights and all its such a great way to add realism and excitement to any layout.

  • Thanks! I do not mind you or anyone using the car accident scene for their layout. have fun. Show a video of it.

  • I'll definitely make a video. My layout is still in the early stage of construction (a sheet of plywood with two controllers and a handful of track on it).... So it might be a while. I don't have much room to work with so its probably just going to be 4x8 or 5x10. Haven't decided yet.

  • i like this layout

  • Thanks dawg. I like it too. But the builder of the layout is WACK, he is Corny!!

  • Very nice ;)

  • Which brand Ho Locomotives do you like the best? Do you use digitrax DCC?

  • Wow this is awsome train layout i"m just starting to make my own!

  • Thanks for posting these!

  • Nice Al you have the biggest and best layout i've ever seen nice nice nice:)

  • this is the best ho layout i've ever seen

  • All the way from Belgium, damn nice work man

  • I think your layout is awesome

  • Dude, This is the best layout i have ever seen in my lifetime. I've been to many hobby shops and train shows "world wide" and i'm yet to see a layout that can compare to this one. I mean the accident scene and the funeral scene alone deserves 10 stars. At the moment, I have about 1/4th of my layout done and when it's finished I hope people druel at my layout like they do yours, peace...

  • Yo thanks alot for that nice ass comment!

  • Hi there, Malaysian peep's here.. Yo man, your layout's look marvelous man... You looks cool too, haha.. aneway, keep up man, make railroads modelling looks UP and perfect..

  • Preiser Figures are HOT !!

  • Thats a nice layout man. Good work on all the details too.

  • yo mang this lay out is sick wish you had more room to keep going!! my set up is near done too 3 years 8'x10' L shape

  • Very nice! Great detail too

  • dude...your layout is cool

  • you did a very good job

  • where did u get ur up engines

  • What did you use to as the concrete in between the rails at the engine facility by the yard?

  • Man I think your layout is awsome! I really want to see you run some trains on this good damn layout.

  • ROFL!!! I almost fainted when I saw that chic lying on the ground...haha

  • I look forward to seeing you and the layout in Model Railroader magazine someday. Great job and look forward to seeing more.

  • sweet,how'd you do that?

  • This Is fuckin insane, nice ass setup, but way to much time on ur hands. who does this,

  • nice tags

  • Can you show me how you build the flip up entrance into your layout? Nice Layout. Nice UP's and BNSFs collection.

  • Even if though UP in the California desert isn't my thing, you have a nice layout.

  • Nice layout there! good stuff.

  • ur kind sick

  • hey Al, are you using atlas code 100 track? btw i have a new layout basically now and im putting a vid up. my engine facility is going to be modeled like yours kind of! haha i love yours so much it looks great man. and hell ik what you mean about pricy flex track btw. such a pain in the ass to get the right bend too

  • That' s a very ambitious, very nice layout. Thanks for sharing.

  • As a new modeler I must say that I'm impressed all the way around with this guy. Great skills and an honest dude who just like modeling. I'm a fan.

  • really cool i love diesels

  • looking good mate

  • FOAMER

  • Comment removed

  • Well I am proud to say that I am who I am and that will NOT change. Although I understand your position 100% you must realize that I am not making videos for children. These videos are not on Disney and Nickelodeon and I am NOT a role model. I make my videos for people of age that choose to view them and if some youngsters see it aww well. All I have to say is MTV, FOX, VH1, FX, ABC, NBC. Well have a good day dawg

  • Damm AL! what happened the air bags didnt deploy in that car hope she make a full recovery.LOL Again nice stuff AL, cant wait for your next video.

  • Good news is I started doing some weathering last night and will continue thru the week until I get everyone elses stuff done and then I will work on my own things

  • hey al, i was wondering how u make the car look like it was smashed in like that? thanks

  • A Lighter, I set the front of the car on fire, blew it out and used a real HO telephone pole to push in the melted plastic to indent in the front

  • oh ok! thats awesome! thanks!

  • Very Nice layout!!

  • Is that the limited edition Union Pacific train? I can't tell with my horrible quality xD

  • if the prototype has no motor what the point of buying it?

  • Hell of a layout! Lots of good quality work seen there!

    U really like the whole look of the layout and enjoyed the U2 music in the background!

    It reminds me of Keddie CA yard or Dunsmuir CA yard with some good ol southern CA background added for good measure.

    Nice weathering job on the trains and layout too. Glad to see someone posting how to vids up here along with ohiosouthern. Keep the vids comming and again great work!

  • Really very, very nice!

  • sweet layout!!

  • Will you show a video of your sd70 ace prototype acually running.

  • Can't. The prototype does not have a motor in it.

  • Really nice.

  • nice!!!! just got my benchwork done and wanted to know what is the min radius in ur yard?

  • My yards minimum radius is probably 30" Then the one on the outside is probably 45"

  • I've collected both HO & N Scale all my life (44 yrs). Your HO layout is similar to what I would do if I had that much room. I love your accident scene (blood & all), and the emergency lights. Right now I'm doing N scale, and adding more today and tonight. Check out my video. Great job! Just one question,,,, why use the "re-railers" in your yard? It ruins the great work and doesn't look realistic. (my opinion). I'll keep checking back with your videos! Great Job!

  • Youre right that the corny ass re-railers take away the realisticism of any scene BUT I had to decide to install them on both ends of the yard. Do you know how much EASIER it is to put cars and engines on the track? So much and I had to realize the tracks are as long as 15 ft and 9 tracks wide. If I had not done that what a pain. Anyway I did it for ease and that was more important for me than aesthetic reasons THIS TIME. And I do not regret it either

  • you sound like kermat the frog, nice vid though 5/5

  • I can live wit dat. Shit this nigga got a raspy ass voice, ike Busta Rhymes.

  • did you know Althern Gensis SD60Ms came out today. the ones with BNSf patches like 8151 and all of them. even the old BN 1991 in HO brandnew in stock today. you aughta get some.

  • phenominal, jealous. you have great talent. ive been into trians since i was 5 but never had the space to start building. i dig the accident scene with the bloody as hell guy. very nice.

  • What?! You didnt see the lady all bloody on the blanket? That may be in a different more newer video of mine. Look for it. Its hot!!!

  • No this is the video! It has the lady on the blanket all bloody. Also I painted almost all of the firefighters!! The emergency personal was wearing orange jump suits and I painted them black and silver and painted some black guys as well! There were no blacks yo!! So I had to paint them!! Now there is like 7 total instead of one token black guy.

  • Dude, your layout looks HOTTTT. I think it's bigger than my club's layout haha. I LOVE the detail in everything, from the awesome town, to the weathering, to the trackwork. It's awesome dude. Good job.

  • DAMN, THIS GUY'S GOOD!! I can watch his videos all day! I only wish I had a tenth of his skills!

  • Wow I am not that good. thanks though for that nice ass comments. peace out dawg!

     A2thamay

  • where ccould i get some decoders for an athearn genesis sd70? and how much is it?

  • He is right though. I see you like UP and their heritage units...UP has a steam i think its the 844. Its in their heritage line along with the DD40AX

  • what do you use to weather your loco's and R.T.? would arcrylic paints work? plz get back to me.

  • Well I do use acrylic paints for painting things like all my roads and the backdrop mountains but I only use white acrylic paint thinned way down with water to fade the paint color on a loco or other rolling stock. However I do not use them for anything else. i just use weathering powder from AIM and Weathering Systems to weather them and buildings and anything else.

  • if you wanted a steam engine on your modern-day UP layout, get a Walthers UP northern and challenger, and some UP passenger cars, doublehead them with a diesel, and Voila! you got a steam excursion train! (just giving you a tip)

  • No no no. I do not like steam at all. Steam needs to stay where it is, in history

  • Why, there's too many people that like steam, are you a big diesel fan or something?

  • Diesel all day long baby!!! Modern Diesel!!

  • I see, i know you have the UP/D&RGW heritage unit, but which heritage scheme is your favorite?

  • i dont know why flex track would go up almost 2.50 shouldent it go down because of the economic situation? i dont know its just another mystery lol

  • Well they studies show that when the economic times get worse people spend more on Hobbies to get away from the stresses of life so maybe that is one of the reasons they are raping us, who freaking knows

  • Dude you are the fucking S.H.I.T! I wish i made enough money and room to make something like that! Dont let anyone put you down man, this layout is the fucking bomb!

  • LOL Thanks dawg! I love my layout too! Hey, I am on my way out the door to go to some guys house who just called me and said he has "Thousands of trains in his basement" So I Am going to see about making a purchase. Ill let you guys know ho wit goes. I went to one last week, the lady had TYCO and BACHMANN old garbage for sale. I ran out of her house, I hope this is not the same

  • TYCO and BACHMANN !!! eww that stuff is discusting makes me sick Athearn and KATO all the way!!

  • Good news!! I am uploading a video of the big lot I got today. It is resellable that is the only reason I bought it PLUS it was all only $80! Not bad.  Check the video out very soon!

  • didn't know mike tyson was into toy trains

  • You probably also didn't know that the fact that you have sex with multiple men called homosexuality whore either. You can come out of the closet any day now dawg. Dont be afraid, be brave.

  • Damn man, amazing work. Seriously.

  • how long u been collecting midel trains.

  • Nice layout. An aweful lot of work as well. I'll be back. Thank you for taking the time to share.

  • I love your engine yard and weathering! It looks great!!

  • Thanks a lot dawg! If you want me to weather an engine and boxcar just send me a message and I will do them for you for free and video tape how its done so you can do it yourself.

  • lol our layout is interesting my layout like boring and to simple haha.

  • Outstanding, cant wait to see wen its almost finished..since no model rr can be finished !

  • Keep up the nick work on the layout, Ya I

    know like everthing else everything is up

    in HO scale. I use code 83 and was $300

    for 100' box. and I also use some 70 in spots wich is sky high

  • Good video. I hope you run trains more in the future, but you did explain that! I'm a runner and not as much of a builder so it evens out AND I haven't done my first video, so you're way up on this and it looks GREAT. Your comments are very good information for everyone doing this. Way to go. Keep it rolling.

  • Dude!! your layout kicks ass!

    I love the scenery and your yard! its VERY detailed and your rolling stock is awesome!! DO you have any graffiti on them?

  • Thanks dawg. Yes I have graffiti on a handful of rolling stock

  • Looks great bro! Why the need for re-railers in the yard? I'm planning out my expansion it will have a yard so I am curious as to the need for them.

  • YOU NEED RERAILERS dawg. In a yard derailments WILL happen. A train will run into the wrong track and rear end another train at some point. When that happens you can try to fit your fingers in between the track to put 5-15 cars back onto the track. Its so much easier to run a car over a rerailer and have it back on track in seconds. Just so much easier

  • Wow that's well cool layout. Wish I had that kind of space. Keep up the good work. Just wondering if you can get Peco track in the states? Have you tried any, if you have what do you think to it? Kind regards from here in Great Britain.5* video :-)

  • Yea we can get dumb ass Peco track that is VERY expensive for no fucking reason. The track is not any better than Atlas. As long as they sell that garbage to retarded dumb ass model railroaders they will stay WAY OVERPRICED so if youd like, enjoy it. Otherwise stick with what works THE EXACT SAME and cost MUCH LESS, Atlas Flextrack. Fuck Peco dawg

  • good job you keep up the good work

  • the layouts sweet dude, great vid.

  • great vid as always bro.

    cant wait for your weathering vids. diggin the yard too bro. very nice.

    keep it up.

    peace

    ---jerry

  • Nice layout! I would like to see some of your units running on this big layout. That yard is pretty big.

  • I am thinking about making a new video tonight of trains running

  • when you runt he engines u should run the Sd70ACe

  • I'm kind of embaressed to ask but.. what's a re-railer for? :$

  • Dont be embarrassed man its ok. re-railers are good to have in a yard because there are so many tracks next to each other making it a little bit hard to put a car or engine back on the track correctly without being able to see the tracks. So if a train derails it is simply easy to pick up the loco or car and run it over the re-reailer a couple of times and it will go back on track without bending down and looking at the track. It also serves another purpose...

  • The otehr purpose is in the event you bring a car into the yard (usually slowly) if the turnout is in the wrong direction as you enter well the rerailer will be there to put the trucks and wheels back on the track causing less of a mess and possibly diverting a derailed line of cars. So re-railers are very important to have in some places. HOWEVER not too realistic you need to try and hide them. These are used more in HIDDEN staging tracks due to low visibility and its LIKE not on the layout

  • O shit! I gotta pick one up, Im just drawing out my layout right now, and like you said.. I'm gonna go get robbed on buying track for it! Thanks Al, I'll pick some up now, how do you hide them thou? : )

  • They are going to fucking rob you for sure!! Price is $6 for a pack of 3 !! That is fucked up!! They used to be only $3 just 3 or so years ago! So you can rely on getting robbed. DO NOT buy from eBAY!! They will charge you $4 or $5 but then $5 shipping. Assholes on eBay! Anyway I bout 7 packs just this past week for a total of $42!! $42 for rerailers! OH MY GOD, Wheres my wallet!!? LOL So anyway the way I best hide them on my yard is to paint them railbrown first then...

  • I ballast the yard and partially ballast on the sides of the re-railers making them less obvious. Thats all I could do.

  • Okay thanks Al! Rail brown... I'll find that color, and yeah tell me about it.. bought 3 switches and it came to 60 bucks! and bought 5 things of flex track... 30 bucks.. jesus! Can not imagine if I was doing O scale or something...

  • Wow man I wish I had room for a layout like this! You do a great job and I got great ideas and good tips in your how to videos! Thanks a lot man!

  • what is your favorite engine that you have and what engine would u recomend

  • wow my favorite engine? Well I have to pick my two Tower 55 UP ES44AC engines. They run perfectly, the sound great and they look so damn good!  Then followed closely by my Overland SD70ACes. They run great and of course look great but do not have sound. Coming in Third place (I no longer own though) is the Broadway Limited Paragon AC6000CW engine! I have to say that it ran PERFECTLY! It was HEAVY and looked great!! That one was better than any Kato, Genesis, Atlas or P2K hands down!!

  • I can easily tell you what is going to be my most favorite engine(s) that I will have on my layout. The MTH SD70ACe is going to be #1 for me. I know it looks 100% to my standards and will run perfectly as seen in the video. The SD70ACe is my most favorite engine and if Tower 55 made the SD70ACe first they would still be in business but they fucked up and went with the ES44AC/DC which is very very similar to the AC4400CW so it wasnt a big seller

  • Lookin good Al. I didn't realize you had such a large layout. I'm jealous. I've only got an 11X8. I'm looking forward to seeing your trains run. Will you be employing a Car Card waybill system at some point in time?

    Driline.

  • Whats up dawg! I gave a shot out to you, JKtrains and Paul Cutler on a video a few days ago. As for my layout I have no plans for waybill system running. I have come to terms that I am the type of model railroad builder more than a runner.  Running my trains is ok but building the layout is the best for me.

  • Nice work on the track. What kind of video camera do your have? It seems to record very well in low light and has very good image stabilization.

  • Thanks. As for what i use to video tape the videos it is simply a Nikon P80 digital camera. I got it at Best Buy for $399 last year and I am seeing them sell on eBay right now for as low as $250!!

  • Do you upload straight from the camera or do you run them through a encoder program? If you use a software program which one. Thanks for the help.

  • Well I upload from camera into my computer then right to Youtube. I have a video program but you know it is is not easy to use so I do not edit my videos. I upload them as they are and I am happy with that HOWEVER I want to do better how to videos and if I can edit them well I can make them less than 10 minutes.

  • what # switches do you use in your yard? Those look like #4's

  • Good eye. I am not going to tell everyone they need #6 or bigger for their layout! Bullshit! #4 in the yard are perfect! no issues at all! Not even with my SD70Aces! The mainline uses mostly #6 turnouts for better looks that all but if I had #4's it would be fine too!

  • the yard and engine facility looks really good.

  • Thanks man. It was a vision in my head that came out onto the benchwork.  I am very pleased with it

  • I can completly imagine your Rio Grande heritage unit with the NS SD40-2 on a hot shot leaving the yard.

  • Maybe you will, maybe you will

  • That's a little bit too much of a stretch, even for the UP Yuma Sub. See, NS is BNSF run-through power, and UP RARELY utilizes BNSF as run-through power.

  • I'll give you major credit for such detail and such a good layout, it looks a lot like what I've seen over here in California while driving out along the 10: Double tracked, with yards at Colton and Yuma, AZ. UP, surprisingly enough, occasionally uses BNSF power, but not a terribly huge amount. Keep up the great work.

  • Very kind comment dawg! Thanks man!

  • Absolutely welcome. If you'd like any of my input or some advice/knowledge of the line for modeling, feel free to drop me a line.

  • Thanks, I have a question right now by the way, What type of engines is UP using in their yards to switch out cars right now? are all the SD45T-2 engines been parted away too? I have a SD45T-2 and I think it is a little too late to utilize it on my layout

  • You can use just about anything SD or GP, maybe even some ex-SP stuff. Some of the SD stuff is occasional road power, but I have yet to see it out on the sunset.

  • i saw an sd45t-2 last november in the Davis yard

  • what kind of tracks do you use? Atlas ? otherwise great looking layout

  • Atlas code 100! It is cheaper than the rest so I stick to it. Code 83 is better looking BUT they give you less and charge you more!! WTF is up with that bullshit

  • Good video showing your layout...and yea..lets see some action next time..lol!! A possible suggestion for your accident scene...where the car is up against the power pole..have one end of an overhead line on the ground and someway make it spark.... have seen someone do a welding scene with the welder sparking...maybe you could do something like that. Keep up the good work....Dan

  • See that is what I am talking about!! You are displaying what is needed to be a FUN model railroader!! See you were just juggling a good idea of having a wire down and using the arc welder lights to simulate the electrical line is down and sparking. good idea that I will highly consider!

  • You got any switcher engines????? instead of a regular up engine

  • Well I actually am using two sd40-2 engines as my switching engines for the yard and maybe a SD45t-2

  • I like the engine house with the new yard alot it looks really nice