The train show was at the Azan Shrine in Melbourne, Florida on March 7, 2020. I brought a 4x8 portable layout. It is made mostly of foam that is covered with thin plywood. Very light weight and easy on my old back. There are three sections so that it fits in my small car. The sections are held together using bungee cords for operation. The top surface is covered in indoor-outdoor carpet. That keeps the sound down and does not produce much lint the way that regular carpet can do.

UPDATED April 2022 due to errors in the original video.This video depicts a small, portable model railroad in N-Scale. The theme is fantasy. That is to say, you get to make up your own mind about what is there. The layout has been under construction for a while now. The base is 4 inches of foam. Some of that is the higher density, blue foam used in construction. The remainder is the stuff we throw away after we assemble knocked down furniture. The mountain is also made of foam. Some of the cheap stuff and some Great Stuff spray foam. The track is mostly Atlas brand flex track. There are no switches or crossings. The idea is to be reliable and to have small trains passing through big scenery.

First show for a new, portable layout under construction. It is N-Scale and has a fantasy concept with a mixture of eras and even universes. This short video was captured at the 2019-09-21 Southern Division of the Train Collectors Association meeting in Orlando, Florida. The construction is mostly foam. The buildings and most other structures were printed in 3D on an older Dremel 3D20 printer using designs found on Thingiverse. The water in the visible stream is epoxy with wavelets cut in the surface and a layer of high gloss varnish. The whole thing is very light. The next show will be December 7, 2019 in Melbourne Florida.

Video of the little train layouts I displayed at a train show. The Train Collector's Association, Southern Division held a show at the Fenn Center in Fort Pierce, Florida on February 24, 2018. I brought three small layouts on which to run some trains for the visitors. There is a visitor button to activate the Amercian Flyer Whistling Billboard. There is also a button to activate the whistle in the Marx Girard Station.

The Space Coast Train Show for March 2018 was held at the AZAN Shrine in Melbourne, Florida on (the usual) first Saturday of March. Here are some scenes from the show. There was a room full of dealers and 6 display layouts of a variety of sizes and scales.

The National Train Show is held in association with the National Model Railroad Association convention each year. This year (2017) it was held in Orlando, Florida. There were plenty of operating layouts to view. It seemed to me there were more of these layouts than there were vendors. This short video shows a set of Lego trains, buildings and scenic details. It is a very large display and one of three different ones the group from the Tampa area bring to train shows. The trains appear to be 2-rail O-Gauge.

The Atlantic Coast S-Gaugers - Northern Florida Division - brought their portable layout to the Southern Division Train Collectors Association meet in Orlando on September 15, 2018. They were set up on the stage in front of the dealer tables. There were quite a few trains running throughout the day. Here is a short video and some stills of their display.

The National Train Show is held in association with the National Model Railroad Association convention each year. This year it was held in Orlando, Florida. There were plenty of operating layouts to view. It seemed to me there were more of these layouts than there were vendors. This short video shows a small part of a Z-scale layout.

The South Brevard Hi-Rail Modular Club met and displayed the club Hi-Rail layout on June 6, 2015. The place was the Schultz Space Coast Train Show at the Azan Shrine Temple in Melbourne, Florida. We ran trains and gabbed with the visitors - old friends and new ones. The next show there will be September 5, 2015. We'll be there for that one and for the others in the foreseeable future.

In 2013 I found some old (1930's era) Marx Canadian Pacific passenger car bodies. The wheels, trucks and couplers had been stripped off of them. The bodies themselves were scratched, dented and had some surface rust. These are somewhat rare today and certainly hard to find in any condition. I searched out parts to restore them to running condition. I had the help of other hobbyists and vendors on eBay. The train you see is now equipped with the older one-way couplers. It has a matching Marx tinplate tender. The loco is custom painted and from another era of toy trains. It is Marx, but not tinplate. It will have to do until I get a better-matching engine.

On Saturday September 3, 2016, I displayed a small portable layout at a train show in Melbourne, Florida. The layout is housed in an old, well-used, cardboard guitar case. The little trolley is an N-Scale item running on N-Scale track. The scenery is mostly Styrofoam with some Masonite in place here and there. The painting in the case top is acrylic on foamcore intended to depict the Canaveral National Wildlife Refuge at one end and the Kennedy Space Center area near the launch complex. The shuttle and other space-related items are Lego building toys. The shuttle itself is pretty close to N-Scale in size. The external fuel tank, solid rocket boosters, transporter and other little things are not.

Some old footage on a new computer using a new version of Movie Maker. Here is the epic journey of an old windup toy train around and around the outer O-Gauge loop on the Zilwaukee, Okeechobee and Tremungus Rail Road.

This video shows some before, after and action shots of an old toy train made by Marx. The subject tanker - reporting marks NIAX256 - was damaged in Hurricane Wilma. It also suffered some abuse to the frame. It actually looked like someone had stepped on it

A 4x8 foot portable layout as seen at the March 23, 2013 Stuart, Florida TCA Train Show. My grandson and I brought it and some trains to let kids have a chance as engineer. Sadly, there is only this little bit of video. The stills of the kids are things I cannot post. The parents all gave me permission to photograph them, but, I did not ask about posting on a public forum and I did not collect any names.

Here is a short movie showing reverse loops made using MTH RealTrax, sectional track. The switches are non-derailing. That means they throw themselves to line up with an approaching train. During this continuous video, the only control changes made are the direction switch and the throttle.

An HD video of the first phase of construction on a passenger station platform. The Zilwaukee, Okeechobee and Tremungus Rail Road is a toy train layout. It features trains and structures mostly in 3/16ths inch to the foot scale and two gauges of toy train track.

It is time to rework part of the Zilwaukee Okeechobee and Tremungus (model) Rail Road. This video shows the process of clearing off the west side. Soon, the fixed track and scenic elements will be replaced by a series of portable layouts. I take those to train shows. The west side has been mostly S-Gauge track from American Flyer and Gargraves. some of the heavy equipment used is made by Marx.

A while back, I bought a Marx 1095 E-7 loco with some issues. The shell was cracked and missing the horns. The motor would not run. I also bought a crane with a broken boom and missing crank and hook. To these pieces I added a caboose that was reworked to have a more western look and a searchlight car based on an LED flashlight.

This video shows an old, tinplate train with a clockwork motor running on a new layout under construction.