Here You Go BondoBilly! (ot) (link)

That layout was once in NY. Owned and operated by a CBS technician. The turntable was an old auto lift he had in his backyard. People would bring their engines to his house and back their cars up to the lift, then push their engines on to the turntable, and then he would raise the engine to grade level. I have video tape of Ellen and I driving/operating his 2-8-0 and his Box Cab "diesel" engine on his layout. He had a five acre piece of land off of School House Road off the Garden State Parkway. The track is 7 inches wide, and he had a full sized grade crossing at the lip of his driveway. Before they moved to the south, he had over 2 miles of hand laid track in his back yard with a full sized bridge that crossed over the tracks. It was an out and back figure 8 layout.

He imported coal from Scotland for use in his steam engines. To get the boiler up to temp, he would soak a rag in fuel oil, throw it into the firebox and attach a wet/dry vacuum hose to the stack to create a proper draft for the fire.

His machine shop/garage would make most guys think they died and went to heaven. Unfortunatley the video tape I have is on Sony Beta 1 and nobody has a player. We would go up to his house once a month for a "run". Guys would drive from all over and bring their engines. If you think car restoration is expensive, you haven't played with these guys. A nice 4-6-4 with tender can run as high as $35,000.

I love it.