On the second night of the National, we went to visit Chris Smith’s layout. While only a small portion of the layout had scenery, you could see the passion Chris has for building scenery. The layout is based on a John Armstrong design. It winds and twists it way up through three levels of railroad, moving a lot of open hoppers up and down the railroad.

While we were there we saw a beautiful pair of Kohs Y6b’s pulling a nice open hopper train filled with a bunch of Rich Yoder’s hoppers. Turns out an MTH locomotive had to be put into service later that night when the Kohs engine had some trouble. The MTH locomotive was impressive in it performance. Overall the layout was nicely built and ran very well. Based on the scenery in place and how well the railroad operated, this is going to be a must see layout for the region.

Chris was a great host answering question well past the end time for the open house. This was one of the layouts I wanted to see and I was even more impressed than I thought I might be.

Chris Smith

A Kohs Y6b waiting in front of the tunnel portal

Chris’ rather nice brackets

Using one of two Atlas bridges for a duckunder

The upper yard with Chris in the background

Chris’ art

You can tell what he has a passion for

You have to like a nice string of open hoppers.

Another nice brass piece sitting in the upper yard.

another nice model

The before part of the corner

continuing down the outside wall

The entrance into the upper yard with sceanery started

Looking across at the lower level yard with the two upper levels going over the top.

You can learn a lot by seeing how its built.

All that wiring back to a movable control stand.