 The October What's Neat Starts Right Now! The What's Neat Show is sponsored by Lombard Hobbies, your value hobby shop for over 40 years of modelers helping modelers. Big inventory, value pricing, fast shipping and great service. Additional support is provided by Walthers Trains, everything you need to build a great model railroad. Check out their website at Walthers.com. And by American Limited Models, the relentless pursuit of accuracy. Check out their website at AmericanLimitedModels.com. And thank you for helping us support the best hobby in the world. This is What's Neat for October 2021. I'm your host Ken Patterson. And this month we go to the St. Louis RPM Meet in Collinsville, Illinois. What a magnificent show it was this year. Well over 2,000 models were on display and over 715 people attended this year's show. It was absolutely an extravaganza of great people, great models and a lot of amazing things to see. Also, I'd like to say I met Andrew from Lombard Hobbies out there at the show. I was so busy doing interviews I didn't actually know who I was meeting when he introduced himself. I actually thought he was somebody else that wanted me to shoot their layout when I was going up to Lombard Hobbies because I received a few emails with folks wanting me to do just that. But Andrew, it was an absolute honor to meet you. Your store is top notch and I can't wait to get up there. It's my new favorite place to order all of my athern products. Now this month, October 15th, Walther's is introducing a brand new line of kits for the hobby. And this is kind of neat because we've all been looking for ways to invite the youth into the hobby. Well, Walther's has created a new program designed to do just that. Introducing Walther's Build World Modeling Kits. This idea is simple. It's a six month subscription program with everything that you need to create a 12 by 24 inch diorama. You can pick the theme as Walther's is offering three for us to start, which is mainstream USA, American Farmstead and Northwood's Retreat. Every single month, a new model will show up at your door during the subscription promotion and including all the tools that you need to build the model so you don't need a shop. You can literally do this at your kitchen table. This is great for modelers that have downsized their layout and they're living in a smaller home or community environment where they can actually build their models at a desk. This is a great way to introduce new people to the hobby because it gives you all the skills necessary, creating water, creating rock forms, creating trees, scenery, grass. All of these different things including building structures is included with great instructions. So hats off to Walther's for coming up with a great concept to introduce new folks into the hobby and otherwise advanced modelers as well with this six month subscription program that's got everything that you need to build a great diorama. So with that, I would like you to also check out show number 164 on the What Sneak This Week podcast. That show we did a lot of interviews here in the studio with a lot of folks from the RPM meet. We shared a lot of the views of the RPM meet and a lot of the festivities here on the property that we had to enjoy with a lot of our great friends, the best people in this hobby, which is of course the best hobby in the world, model re-roading. So with that, let's continue on with the rest of this October 2021 What Sneak. We are at the 14th annual RPM meet in St. Louis in Collinsville, Illinois. I'm standing here with wonderful young Daniel and sugar fire Joshua Barton. And we're going to take you through an entire tour of this show. A few interviews, all the models and show you all of what it is that makes an RPM meet great. What do you think about this so far, Joshua? I can't believe how many people are here. I can't believe how many friends are back to show things. I can't believe the wonderful models that we're seeing this year. They've had a record attendance this year. This year broke all records so far. Daniel, tell us what you think. I just think it's phenomenal. I mean, missing out on the last year's show, I think this was just a whole makeup for it. And like Josh said, it's seeing all of our wonderful model roading friends and all the wonderful models displayed here. You can't beat it. This is a great show. I recommend you come next year for the RPM. That's awesome, guys. So enjoy this October's What Sneak. I'm standing here with Bill Denton. And this is a magnificent end scale layout. And he calls it the Kingsbury branch Milwaukee road layout. And this is a prototype looking layout. I mean, he's even got code 40 custom built turnouts on this. Bill, this is absolutely amazing. Tell the viewers of the What Sneak show about this amazing layout. Okay, Ken. Thanks. Well, there was an article in the 1975 model railroad or magazine about the Kingsbury branch. It's basically a little bit northwest of the downtown area in Chicago. And I wore out about three copies of the magazine and then finally decided to build a end scale rendition. And this is it. It's 12 feet long. It's about two feet wide. I started this in 1994, believe it or not, and it took me about four years to complete. I built the first six feet, took me about two years, and then I added another six feet to it and that took it about another two years. That's really cool. So what's the total length of this layout? 12 feet long. Okay. At home, I have a staging yard that connects to it as well. And it features a scratch built turnouts. For the most part, I do have some microengineering turnouts on it as well. All the buildings are either kit-bashed or I have some all-scratch built buildings. But nothing out of the box. Everything's been modified to some extent. And yeah, and most of the rolling stack has been weathered. My engines are all custom-painted Milwaukee Road engines and they all have sound in them. This is amazing. I mean, I like the way you throw your switches. You've got knobs on the end and I guess they pull out. Is that right? Yes. Double throw a slide switch underneath the layout. Right. There's also controls on the back side. So at shows like this, I usually operate from the back end. Tell me about your passion for the hobby. What made you build a display layout like this? It doesn't just sit in your home for your own enjoyment, but you find great pleasure in sharing your work with the public. Yeah, I was inspired by the Reed Brothers. They did the same thing. They had a section of their home layout that they could take out and bring the shows. And I started helping them out at shows. So I wanted to continue with the tradition and build something similar. That's absolutely amazing. Now, it looks like it's built at a perfect height for viewing. What is the height of this layout? Well, you know, I don't even know what the height is. It was built to match the read to connect up with the Reed Brothers. I'm just guessing you're looking at probably about 48 to 50 inches. Well, I don't think it's 50 inches. It's probably in the 40 range somewhere. It's a really nice height for viewing end scale because the buildings are tall and you want to be able to look into the layout and see all the stuff behind the buildings. Correct. And that was one compromise I had to make because if I would have built the buildings to full scale, they would have been too tall. You wouldn't have been able to see the railroad. So I kind of selectively compressed those to a smaller size. Another thing I've noticed is the tones and the colors of your buildings. There's nothing that really sticks out as being bright. It's all blends. Yeah, I think that's the key. You've got to kind of weather everything to match to look like it's always been there. And you've got operational railroad crossing lights and LED lights. Are these LEDs? Yes, they are LEDs. They're Woodland, Scenic Street lights. I just recently began putting those on the layout. So that's kind of a new addition. I'll bet this looks really cool when you turn the lights off. Yeah, yeah, it does. Are the buildings lit too? Not yet, but they will be. You're working on that. Yeah, I'm working on that. Now, what are your plans for the future? Are you going to expand this at some point or what type of changes would you make if you had to do it over? Well, the one change I'd make is they wouldn't be so heavy. They are heavy. They're hard to get out of my basement. So that's why it hasn't been at a public show in probably 10 or 12 years now. I do have plans for an addition. It'll be based on another Milwaukee road line that connects to this, called the Bloomingdale Line. Dude, this is absolutely amazing. Again, the colors are perfect. It looks like prototype and scale if there's not a better word for that. Thanks, that was what I was trying for, yeah. It's amazing. And thank you so much for sharing your art with the viewers of What's Neat. Thanks, Ken. Thanks for stopping by. OK. I'm Myra Lindsey. And I'm Scott Lindsey. And you're watching What's Neat with Ken Patterson. I'm standing here with Joseph Blevins that has built some amazing dioramas, Joseph, and with a lot of restaurants. Tell us about these models. Yes, I 3D printed all these modern houses here just because I'm interested in them and they're not commercially available. So I designed and printed all these modern houses along with the commercial buildings that are not available. So I made them up myself, printed them up and made my diorama for the show today. Now, you're a vehicle modeler. You don't really model the railroad because I see no tracks. Tell me about that. Why do you have a passion for cars? I just grew up with the passion of cars. I never, I mean, I have model trains as well, but cars are what it is for me. Have you met Mike Buddy here today? I have met Mike Buddy. Isn't he a wonderful man? He is great inspiration for everybody. Is this your first RPM meet in St. Louis? No, I came in 2018, the last show. I came last time, but I had a very small display because it was my first time. No, that's amazing. Do you have a favorite building of all of them? The Water Burger. The Water Burger. Water Burger. Right. So from Texas area, so Water Burger is a staple. Dude, that's absolutely awesome. Your roads look really good. Tell me what you made your roads out of. 3D printer as well. This one is all 3D printed. So that would explain the tile and the cement and all the, what do you call it, the forms between the cement, the expansion joints. Very, very good work. And also I've noticed you're very good at scenery. Oh, I try. Well, I mean, you've got the plants and the flowers. It's really those basic things that we all know are there that are so easy to miss. Right. And I tried to do something that wasn't flat as well to give it more realism. Because, you know, you hardly see anything that's 100% flat. Dude, this is amazing and that you have a good idea and you're right. That topography looks really great. Well, thank you very much for sharing this with the viewers of What's Neat. Thank you. I'm standing here with Dan Gohans and I've got Bob Johnson from the 187th Vehicle Club. We've talked to them before here at the RPM Meet in St. Louis. And this year there's an awful lot of neat vehicles and a lot of stuff that you can purchase. So Dan and Steve, tell me about this group and what you all do to help promote the best hobby in the world. I'm Bob Johnson and I maintain the website for the 187th Vehicle Club. The website address is 1-87vehicles.org and it's been up and running since 1998. And we now have literally tens of thousands of photos of HO scale vehicle models on the internet. That's amazing. Now Dan, we've seen Sam Dennehy's work on previous What's Neat shows and he's done the Ghost Buster and a lot of amazing vehicles. Tell me about some of the other fellows in this group. Some of the stuff that you've seen that impresses you. It's amazing how many people have come back this year. In fact, we were just discussing earlier today that we remember being here two years ago with the number of people that came from our group. Right. And it's probably doubled by the amount of people that came this time. So we're blown away by the participation. Again, people came from all over the country. We have people come in from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York and Dallas, Texas where I'm from. That's awesome. And so is Bob. So just the participation level here is just super increased. And then the detail level just keeps getting better and better. There's all the new technologies with the 3D printing, all the manufacturers that are coming out and just the creativity level is just off the charts. That's awesome, guys. This is the best hobby of the world. And vehicles are such an important part of this hobby. And nobody has demonstrated this more than Steve Hurt. And I want to bring Steve Hurt in here, Steve. Every year at this show, you always build a new model, something exciting and usually in large scale. Tell me what did you do this year? This year I built a freight liner yard spotter that the Frisco had. Like a lot of my projects, I got the picture from Mike Condren's website. Luckily, Mike had taken a lot of stuff to archive over the years. And so this is one I found and started in. It's all scratch-built frames, scratch-built chassis. The motor is mostly scratch-built. All the body is, all the doors function, the hood functions. Everything possible does. The fifth wheel goes up and down like a yard spotter should. And it all will, it'll all function like it should. Then with our kind of downtime, because we've missed for a year and a half here, I did a couple other small, like, just paint projects. I want a Divco milk truck for myself that's on a table. And then I did another one that I will drop off at the What's Neat Studios. That's right. You presented a really nice vehicle in the parking lot to me. And it is what type of a vehicle? It's more or less a 37 Ford. And it's done like a railway express truck, but later in life. So just kind of a fun piece. And it's got the words What's Neat on the side? Yes, sir. I really love it. We will show that off in the podcast. Thank you so much for that. You're very welcome. Thank you so much for coming to the show and helping promote the show the way you do. Absolutely. I always try to. And I enjoy it. I wouldn't miss it. So, yeah, it's. Steve, you're the best. And you know what? I love your hats. Oh, I do, too. So, yes. I'm standing here with Pete Munger, who has been at the RPM meet many years and you always bring beautifully detailed dioramas. And I also want to give a shout out to your wonderful wife, Lisa, who I had the privilege of meeting two years ago here at the show. It's wonderful how you get the support from your spouse as you do. But tell us about the diorama that you brought this year, Pete. Well, Ken, thanks for taking the time to do this for all of us. Couple years back, I started watching your weekly and monthly show and it reinvigorated me and I tried the styrofoam and it was a way to get me out of the attic and out into the sunshine on a picnic table and do a little styrofoam modeling. And it was just great that you kind of encouraged us to look in that direction. So I brought three modules this year and I like to use them as kind of a staging canvas type situation because I got a couple of buddies who I'm blessed to have as friends who helped me with the weathering. Joel Nicodemus does some weathering for me and our buddy Steve Hurt. Yes, it was just two hours south of me makes my stuff come to life. And I just really love having the opportunity to build something that kind of displays their artistry. So starting on this end, please, Pete, tell me about what it is you brought this year. Well, what we have is this first one here is a diorama that I brought a few years back called Althea and it features kind of a Midwestern grain scene and gives me an opportunity to build the old Walther's kits and some city classics kits and then to decorate them with some of some of Joel Nicodemus's weathering. And then the middle module is a module that I call Minglewood. And it was an opportunity for me to build that new Walther's hotel kit, which is a Walther's kit. Yeah, there's actually two of them. OK. And I really enjoyed that and an old design preservations kit that I rehabbed. And then this this third one down here is called Big River. OK. And it's also got some Walther's kits. And you'll remember from when we were kids in the hobby, Ken, with the Atlas, the Atlas Lumberyard, the Atlas Lumberyard. I said the least I said I got a timeless kit. I got it. I got to do two of those the right way. Yes, instead of the way I did it in the fifth grade with the tester's glue and bottled paint. So that's what we have here in the third one. Now, tell me what your roads and your black top roads are. What is this all made of yours? Actually, Ken, you know, it's just paint. It's textured paint. OK. From Lowe's or from Wal-Mart. And then same thing with the Rust-Oleum paint for the roads with the decaling from whatever I can find. For the road for the road stripes. It's very effective. Now, do you model Canadian Pacific? You know, I actually model Chester System. I model 1976. OK. But in my town, CP had a couple of run through trains. OK. And so it kind of spoiled me on the multi mark image and like that long hopper train that you have. Right. A little ore car. That's right. That's my Pac-Man train. Well, I love the Pac-Man. So I had to add had to add some CP engines. And of course, Joel made them come to life. But, you know, these these new Kenworth Athern trucks, if you could get a look at some of what Steve Hart does to those things that makes them come to life, it's just it's really incredible what those guys can do with with some of their weathering. This is awesome, Pete. Your overall presentation is very believable. Your coloring of things is dead on. Nothing super bright. It all just seems to blend in prototypically accurate. Hats off to you. This is the best hobby in the world. And it's because of modelers just like you. Thank you, Ken. Thank you. Enjoy it. Keep inspiring us. I'm sitting here like we do at every RPM meet with one of my favorite people, David Hasse. Dave, you look great. How have you been? I've been great, Kenny. How about you? Everything's really good. Now, you know Dave Cannon and company. He got acquisition of that company years back 2006. So it's been 15 years. I've had Cannon, you know, we do the diesel detail parts. And then several years ago, branched out into the free cars, doing these various box car kits. And then debuting here at the show this weekend, I've got six gondola kits that that are a takeoff on the old modelers choice kit. So debuting and seeing for the very first time in this October is what's need are these gondolas. And they do look fantastic. Tell me about this kit. And I believe you said it looks like this the way you get it. Tell me about it. It's a laser cut kit to make the sides and the ribs for a gondola. I supply ends for it, instructions and draft gear pockets. And the modelers still has to get trucks and couplers and various things and put them together. And, you know, this is kind of what the basic thing looks like. They have a double floor so you can slide a weight in them so they you can detail the under frame and have a load in them. The, you know, without the weight showing. That's very cool. What is the price point on this new kit? That they are twenty eight, thirty and thirty two are the three different two, three different prices based upon how much time is involved with the kits for me to produce them. That looks really great. And tell us where people can find these or purchase these. Well, they will be available on the Canon website probably in August sometime. And, you know, will be available direct from Canon or at the show here. And the day is almost over and they're almost all gone. That's awesome. Dave Hussie, I'm going to summarize this one by saying I've known you for years. You're an absolutely amazing man. I have great respect for you. And in fact, I love you, buddy. OK, I love you, too, Kenny. Thank you for sharing this with us on what's going to do. Now I'm standing here with Tony Cook and Shane Mason from White River Productions. And that is quite a wonderful publishing company. And we know all the great magazines that you do. Tony, tell us what are the magazines that you do in case folks don't know. Shane and I both do model railroad news monthly. And then I also am co-editor of H.O. Collector and I'm now managing editor of DeCelera and White River Productions owned by Kevin and Nadine Udaily. There's about nine regular magazines now and about 20 historical societies. And we're here today enjoying the RPM. We've been looking forward to it for two years. That's awesome. But what a great, great show and seeing all sorts of folks. Yeah, that's awesome. Now, I know that one thing about you two gentlemen is that you're very intelligent. And you know where you know where the magazines have shown a direction of going. But you've been smart in that you're also on the internet. Tell me about that. Well, I mean, you know, certainly Facebook website, a lot of video things with atherns, scale trains, train world, those kind of places. Just talking about products for Pito. I mean, there's so much out there. And as you know, that's a great way to connect now that is both that I'm always hearing people say, oh, I wasn't aware of model railroad news or wow. So we're always finding new people from all the different things we do. Shane, have you found out that it is a lot easier to say a lot more in video than it is in a paper magazine with regards to what you can cover? You know, it's a lot easier, but I find the amount of time it takes to make a video, that production time, so much easier to write in text. The number of takes you mess up and have to go back and redo stuff, the editing process, you know. I haven't made videos from my own channel a couple years now. But you know, there's some time where I'm like, oh, I wish I could just get on and do a video about this. There's other times where I'm like, oh, this is so much easier typed out. So they both have their advantages. That's awesome. Now, Tony, tell me, where can people acquire these magazines? You can go to shop.whiteriverproductions.com and each of the magazine titles, like they just want to see what's new in the hobbymodelrailroadnews.com and find us on Facebook. I'm the one that monitors that for the magazines I do, so easy to get ahold of us. And we love talking about trains can help you find stuff, so. That's awesome. Now, you have been on the What's Neat This Week video podcast one time, I believe. Weren't you on with Lionel String on that episode? Was that how we did that? Lionel who? That's right. That's the America, I've got a pin here. There it is. That's Lionel's podcast. Tell me the name of that. American Mercantile Liability Company? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I think it's a modelerslife.com. A modelerslife. And that's Modeler with one L, not two like Lionel. And it's a fairly well-known podcast that I have on occasion I get drug into, but I'm always just trying to be very nice and get through it, you know. I wanna thank both of you gentlemen for the way you helped promote this, the best hobby in the world, guys. It's great, and can you guys do great stuff? Appreciate everything you do. Ha, ha, ha. Now we've got Blaine Hatfield from Arrowhead Models. We've interviewed him before when he had his first hopper car that came out, and that was the? Committee design hopper. That is absolutely right. And then you came out with this wonderful rail gun car, the Greenville 2494 Gondola, right? That's correct, yeah. That's amazing. And now this year you are debuting something new, Blaine. Tell me about this exciting new project. Absolutely. So we will be releasing this year the ACF 4600 Covered Hopper. This is a really common car. It was in production among the prototype for over 20 years. Over that time span, there were lots of different phase variations. Other manufacturers have done this car, but not this phase variation. So the list of paint schemes that people are getting, which we've got, I don't know if you can see this on camera. Go ahead and hold it up. So I see Mopac, Rock Island, Burlington, Northern, and Northwestern, Chicago Northwestern, and Union Pacific. So that's five. That's five. Are you doing various car numbers for each five? Yeah, for those five, we're doing 12 car numbers. Wow. And then we also are doing a Milwaukee Road and a BNSF. That's great. Now, how many years are you into this wonderful journey called Arrowhead Models? We're three years into it, at this point. Three years in, three cars, so. I wanna say congratulations to you. I do recall, I believe you worked for a company called ExactRail, was that the name of it? And you did very good there. You learned a lot, and you've taken everything that you've learned, and you've grown it into this new company that's three years old. This is the type of things that makes our hobby great, is when individuals like you grab the bull by the horns and do what you've done with such superior looking freight cars. Thank you. Honestly, that's quite a compliment. I appreciate it, you know, I've been in the business about 12 years now from when I entered at ExactRail, and just happy to be plugging away. Now, I understand you're also getting into the publishing business. Tell us about that. Well, to say that I'm getting into the publishing business is maybe a little bit more ambitious than what we actually have in mind, but we did do a book. It's been a passion project for me. It's just something that I've just really wanted to do. It's called A Hundred Ghosts. It's a photographic exposition of rural grain elevators, and it gives sort of a high level view of some of the major topics associated with the grain industry and grain elevators. A lot of these elevator companies, the grain merchants, had partnerships with railroads. There's a lot of correlation, and I felt like that was something that needed development still in our industry, you know, and a better awareness, and so. No, this is very interesting, but it's little steps like this that lead into a grain elevator kit in the future, you think? Have you thought about it? I have, yeah, we'll see what comes about. I mean, obviously, one thing leads to another, right? That's awesome. And another mainstay that you've done very well with is wheel sets. Tell me about that. Yeah, so Arrowhead has a line of wheel sets. It's a great add-on product for us. It's served us very well. It differs from other wheel sets in that the axle and the anterior and posterior surfaces of the wheel sets are turned. Axles have a dish. They're not straight all the way across. They're actually kind of a concave hourglass shape. So we turn all of that, and then the interior face of the wheel, the medial, well, it's kind of hard to explain, but it's an accurate contour. There are some manufacturing concerns which in times past have led to people taking some shortcuts in terms of how they do that machining, and these we just throw caution to the wind and just do it right. As we've all learned us all together at the same time, I would expect nothing less of you than to perfect the axle of a wheel. Thank you. All right. Well, this is awesome, man. And I've said it in interview after interview, this is the best hobby in the world. And your passion really demonstrates what you're doing for us. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Yeah, appreciate it. Take care. All right. I'm standing here with Ryan Matthews, and we all are fascinated by DCC. We've talked about it so many times on the show, and there's so many various types, but I see that Ryan has a lot of European and US models and things that you may not otherwise know about. Ryan, welcome to our What's Neat show. Yes, thank you, Ken. And so, yes, as Ken described, we are the importers from North and South America for DigiCy's, and we have a wide array of DCC and other products. And one unique feature is our advanced command station. It is compatible with other brands. So if you're a Digitrax user, NCE user, like I know you have on your layout, with our products, users can have both at the same time. So it's good for train clubs to where each individual member, if they wanna use their own personal brand of throttle, they can bring it to the club and operate alongside everybody else at the same time. And so the star of that show is the command station right here, the DR-5000, and it's multi-protocol, has all kinds of features built into it, Wi-Fi, programming track, things that you're used to with your normal command station. And then that opens up the options to, a lot of people are familiar with something like this, you can add that to your system, and then we have a whole host of other throttles here that can be used all the way down through the whole line. One of my personal favorites, the Roco, it's a Wi-Fi throttle, it's very easy to use, center off, easy turnout control. A lot of people are very familiar with the TCS, so we can run that straight to the command station as well. And then we've got products by CVP, a lot of people are familiar with their easy DCC system, they offer a lens compatible version. ESU, the mobile control two throttle, a lot of people are familiar with this one as well. And then this is a throttle by Pico, it's actually a local net throttle, which will work on a digit track system as well as ours. Oh, that's cool. Yes, and then of course, the new digit track throttles as well. Those are much bigger than I thought. Yes, they are, and the screen's very nice, very easy to see with the display, it's in color screen, the menus are easy to navigate through. And then this brings us over here to the display, if you can see this here, we've got the Railcom reader going right here, which is reading the address of the locomotive. So if I tilt it over, you can see that goes off and I can bring it back. So that's reading the Railcom address from inside the locomotives, that's built into a lot of their conventional decoders that you're used to seeing. And then that's also shooting up to our JMRI panel, which is great for dispatchers, hidden staging yards, you can see that locomotive address on there. And as we tilt it off, it goes unoccupied and then it can come right back. And so a lot of DCC users are very familiar with JMRI and that fully interfaces with that as well. And so that kind of just shows it up. What we've got, a lot of this is done through our Iron Plant Hobbies website. So for anything non-Digikis, you can find that there, everything else, on our Digikis website. So we not only sell to retail customers, but local hobby shops as well, can all be found on our Digikis site. That's digikis.us. Digikis.us, so there's a dealer portal as well as for retail on there. Dude, this is really amazing, Ryan. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with the viewers of What's Neat. Yes, thank you. I'm standing here with Thomas Kelly. And one thing about this hobby, it's not all just about trains. Thomas is amazing in that he models a lot of construction equipment, including very large cranes, absolutely fantastic looking models. Thomas Kelly, explain to the viewers of What's Neat, your diorama that you brought here to the show. Okay, well what we did, with all the models we have built over the years, we wanted a place to be able to display them, and not just on a table, but actually have them in a setting, like a crane yard. So I had a little insight, because my son had worked for a real crane company. So he gave me some insight on how to set the whole thing up. And we just set it up to where we have a place for the boom storage, the cranes. There's a shop there to do painting and sandblasting and a main shop to work on the equipment. And just, you know, in this case, where they're testing out a new crane and setting up stuff, just a normal work day. Now you were explaining to me that these models, there are thousands of dollars in some of these models. Is that how you explained it to me? Yes, yeah. Some of them are brass. The American lattice right there is a modified brass model, which is about $1,000 model at the time. Wow, nice. The one in the back back here is a brass upper. The crane in the boom is brass, was produced a few years ago. I actually scratch built the truck carrier for it because it came on a crawler track, sort of. And we wanted to have it on a truck. They actually made both versions in real life. So I converted it over and built the truck for it. I've also built this one, which is almost all kit-bashed and scratch built. That's amazing. And your roads and all the texture of your roads are very nice. How did you make these roads? Well, the road itself is from Prysler. We just do scenery techniques like the Maurel Roaders do. I am a Maurel Roader also. Okay. This is just thin cork that you can buy at the craft store. You buy it in different colors. In fact, you can see there's a slight different color there. Just having to work out that way, but just fill that in. Concrete is actually a styrene pad that was grooved for the concrete and painted. This building is scratch built. I actually built it from just styrene parts. It's got a complete interior, which I didn't set everything up this year, but it's got the equipment in there. The interior is amazing. That is so cool. Good work on that. I had an office building. So again, that was built from a evergreen pipes up kit. Now, when you're at home, do you set this at home to enjoy the models? This sits in a room at my house, which we call a diorama room. We have several more and they sit there year round and they'll always have cranes on them. And just whatever project I'm working on is gonna be located here. If it's not here, it's been packed up. Usually we just have it packed up in that show. Yes, yes. Thomas, this is absolutely amazing. It's definitely a specialized type of modeling and you've exhibited the fact that you do this very well. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. So that's this segment of the RPM meet about these construction vehicles on what's neat. It's Chris Brimley of the Exact Rail. Chris, what do you have new for us to show us this time? So we've got a couple new cars that are in route right now. So we have a new run of our Bethlehem 3737 Hopper. Those just barely went on the water about three days ago. Unfortunately, there's a lot of shipping delays at the moment. So we're hoping for them to be here in August, but most likely it'll be early September. And so we have a couple of all new schemes that are gonna be on these cars, such as we have the I-PALCO, which is the Indianapolis Power and Light Company. More numbers of our Reddy Kilowatt Indianapolis Power and Light cars, those are extremely popular. More numbers on the Missouri Pacific 3737 Hoppers. So I think I have nine numbers of those. We have a Union Pacific repaint that was done in about 1985 on an MP car. As far as I know, it's a one-off car. It's really kind of an oddball scheme. Then we have a few cars that we're doing as exclusives for trainlife.com, which is the Inland Steel and the Sioux line as well. These are very, very beautiful models. I can't wait to get my hands on some of those mope acts. On another note, I've been watching you on Facebook and your Burlington station, and that is just magnificent. Can you tell us a little about that? Sure, absolutely. So the Burlington station was actually, I built it for a friend who lives in Georgia. He grew up in Burlington, Iowa. He asked me to build it for his home layout almost 10 years ago. And so I started the project about two years ago, got a little burned out in the hobby and started back up on it about three months ago and just blitzed as fast as I could to get it done. So I could bring it here and then he's taking it home from here. Oh, wow. So if we look at the interior here, you did all the chairs and all the tables and even the window fixtures, are you? And that's just absolutely amazing what you've done. Yeah, pretty much every item on the station is scratch built. There's nothing on it that's off the shelf or factory made. The bulk of the station, I laser cut quite a bit of it. It was also just done out of strip styrene and a few other materials that, just the basic modeling materials. Surprisingly, I really didn't do much 3D printed on it. There are a couple parts that I 3D printed, but the majority of it was laser cut, glued, assembled, slapped together, painted. Well, very, very nice model. Kudos to you and thank you very much for coming. Back to you. So guys, that's it. It's been a great show. Two days of excitement and a lot of models. Tell us what you think, Daniel. I just think it was another great show once again, you know, and like last year, we weren't able to make it. I think this year was a good makeup, a lot of good models. So hopefully we'll see everyone next year for next year's show. There you go, Joshua, did you spend any money? I spent a whole lot of money, but don't tell anybody. I cannot believe how many people showed up this year. A record attendance, and it's amazing. Absolutely fantastic. Until next year, that's this segment of October's What's Neat? All of the products seen on this episode of What's Neat are available from Lombard Hobbies in Lombard, Illinois, or order online at LombardHobby.com. Wothers Trains, supporting hobby retailers across the world since 1932. Check out their website and learn more at Wothers.com. American Limited Models, available at your local hobby shop or online at AmericanLimitedModels.com.