Someone passed this along to me. I've let my friends know I would like them to get it for me. I'm not holding my breath.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdQ-2mnODCo

$3.5 million for house, RR & 19.67 acres of land.

As I said elsewhere, depending on zoning restrictions, this could be a viable commercial railroad park operation/bed and breakfast inn. It certainly would be a great place to hold your NRHS/R&LHS/RRE chapter picnic. If you could commercialize it, the asking price might not be too far out of line. You'd probably want to try and negotiate the acquisition of all of the 7.5" ga. railroad equipment as well, if you wanted to run it commercially. It's really a jaw-droppingly beautiful setup.

Geez, thanks for reminding me. I was going to submit an offer for it.

I was surprised by how short the mainline run is. He has really nice shop facilities and yard tracks, lots of switches and track, all immaculate.

The main route is is simply a folded figure 8 or dogbone type design, you cross that truly impressive trestle, loop around the field, passing through a tunnel, back over the bridge and you're back to the shops/house area. Somehow I thought the run would be longer based on the complex shop and yard area he's built.

Don't get me wrong, it's amazing and I'd love to own it, but I had gotten the impression of more extensive trackage on site.

I assume none of the rolling stock is included...
I also wonder how much of the massive G scale layout is included as well, you can see that at the end of this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VdCrHztInA

Lee, don't assume that. The rumor I head is that Tom is getting up in years and looking to "pass the torch" to somebody else as the fellow put it.

What would he do with the trains once he sold the place? He's not looking to build another one, and why would he, this is a pretty dang nice setup. (Yes, I said it was small, but that's more in terms of club layouts, not home tracks...)

I did a quick but of googling and the next most expensive property I found was a lot less, the house was larger, and they had a lot more acreage. At $3.5m there's enough there that he might include the trains. Or maybe they're for sale as an extra, I don't really lmow.

I just hope the right buyer comes along.
I remember many years ago reading of a guy who changed the back of his house to look like a RR station, placed a track alongside and put a couple of cars in there (don't recall if they were passenger or hacks). His employer made him move and when he sold the place he took a massive loss because nobody wanted the 'improvements' he'd made. A I recall reading, he took a crushing loss as the new owner had to tear out the back of the house and start over and pay to scrap all the RR equipment he couldn't move to his new place in another state.
That's the primary reason I never moved on a small mining locomotive I was offered two years ago, I came so close to building a 15" RR in my ample back yard but decided against it from the memory of what I'd read...

What superb model railroads this man has built.

It is kind of sad watching this, however, because it brings back thoughts of several other fine model railroads that were constructed by friends in the railroad industry who took great care to get all the technical details right, but did not construct them in a way that they could be easily disassembled and moved, or make any arrangements to preserve the layout. On their passing, relatives who wanted to sell the property as soon as possible made fast work of demolishing the layout. It is just amazing how quickly a Sawzall can cut up thirty years of intricate work. The station and engine facility portions of some of those layouts would have made excellent dioramas for display at museums and brought some recognition for the craftsmanship of the builder and all the effort they put into them.

I have talked with a few people in the NMRA about developing a footprint for layout modules that would be easily transportable and compatible with typical diorama size in museums. The intention would be to encourage modelers to develop scenes within the footprint, so that those portions of their work might be salvageable for future display if the rest of their layout is subsequently demolished.

PC

From the DVD "The Hobby Run Amuck"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7ZT4gcgm2U

The full version is available for purchase at the producers webpage (I have no affiliation);

http://www.sscom.org/amuck.html