(upbeat music) They say that a layout is never finished. Much like our collections, they grow and evolve. With every new iteration they become more detailed and complex. Some people have one, maybe two rebuilds, but what about three? Tonight we speak with RJ of RJ's trains and explore his journey and not only YouTube, but O scale modeling as well. All this and a whole lot more. So get your ticket from the station, grab a seat, make sure you don't miss the train. What? (upbeat music) Good evening, everyone. And thanks for tuning in to episode 83 of the miniature models podcast. I'm one of your hosts, John Schwartz. And with me, as always, are my fellow co-hosts, Matt Rochford and Johnny, how are we tonight, guys? Doing fantastic, as always. Happy to have everybody together and have Matt another episode. Matt, how are you doing? Good, good, good to be here. Good to have you back, man. Yes, indeed, it is great having you back, man. Matt Z could not join us, unfortunately, this evening, but we have got an old friend of the podcast joining us as our special guest this evening. Matt is Mr. RJ of RJ's Trains. How are you this evening, sir? I'm doing great. It's an honor to finally be on after 80-something episodes for an interview, and it's also an honor to have Matt R here tonight with us, first time in a while he's been able to join. So it means a lot that Matt R is joining us tonight. Yes, yes, yes, very honored to have you on. I appreciate that a lot. Thank you so much. Yeah. I always enjoy hearing your input on the podcast, Matt. So very nice to be here. Even though you're a traitor and left us for H.O. Skell there for a little bit. Wow! You know what? Just wait for the, what do we do it now? I may have a couple of updates for everybody, but I don't know. Ooh, ooh. Really teasing, sir. Yeah, I'm glad to have RJ on the show finally. It has been quite a while since we last said we'd have them on. We said, "We'll catch you at the next stop," and RJ's been waiting at the station and he's gone through a change of management, the railroad closing down, then being restarted again, and finally train came back to pick him up. So we're glad to have you on. Almost like I was waiting for an Amtrak train to come. Oh, I was just gonna do the Clarkson, but so it's just like a normal railroad. Yes, indeed, he is center stage tonight. We're gonna delve deep into his mind, all sorts of great topics. 'Cause I'm sure he has lots to say on quite a few things we have opinions on. But before we get into that, let's just kind of go through and see what everybody's been up to. Matt, I think you've had quite a few things happening. What you been up to, sir? Yeah, so last week met the guys at the bunker and hung out there, ran some trains, ran some newly acquired engines. I did end up picking up or finding the big boy again. So I am a big boy owner of an OSC. I do still have it in HO, obviously, but I now own it in OSCale again. Got a really cool, got the Flag Ox tender to go with it, had a couple other things come back into my collection from some friends that I traded before. So yes, I'm slowly getting back into OSCale again, only because it's, I did miss it, I'll be perfectly honest with you. And then going to the bunker and watching all the guys kind of play with OSCale and run them around, it's just like kind of got bit by the bug again. And I'm not like fully back on board, but I'm slowly kind of getting back into it again and not going to go crazy this time, obviously. But I would like to pick up some additional pieces because at the bunker, we have a place to run trains and it's a pretty big layout. And the guys here did a lot of great work on it. Chicago guys, obviously, I don't know, I don't need a lot of building stuff, but they did all like the actual track work and the woodwork and stuff like that. So a big thanks to Rafe and the other Chicago boy crew for just getting a really cool layout together and reinvigorating my love for OSCale again. So yeah, I'm back, baby. - Always happy to have you back, ma'am. - You've come back to the light side, sir. (laughing) - I guess I'll piggyback off of either, Matt. Goodness, this is like the first episode we've recorded as of recent. We've had such a big backlog. I know I said that during our episode with Glenn. So that's kind of remember what I've done and what I haven't done. But going off of our last episode, at least, quite a lot has happened during the summer. Sid and John did come down Chicago and they hung out with us for a little bit. They're actually pretty instrumental in bringing Matt back into OSCale. So it was a big old run session and the guys get to show off the trains and we got to go to different places and hang out. It's always a joy to have those guys around and be able to show them the bunker. After that, we actually went out to RJ's Neck of the Woods. We hung out on the island. We hung out with the Long Island crew, visiting folks like Steve and Matty and Dashing Dan and a bunch of cool guys out there and obviously getting to see RJ's amazing layout that we will discuss more tonight. And then since then, the thing coming up soon, in fact, it is this week as of recording. Big boys coming to Chicago. So we have a lot of awesome folks coming out to hang out with us and some new faces too. Getting to hang out with D3R, getting to hang out with some members of our everyday discord community, some other friends as well. Really excited to be able to host another big event for everyone and of course, big boy being the main attraction. Very curious to see how they react to seeing an action of that magnitude. So lots of fun stuff that is in the works for us. RJ, how about yourself, man? What's you been up to? - Yeah, I was just about to say you're leading perfectly into me there as a good host should. And as you alluded to, I have kind of been working on a brand new layout and I've certainly been doing a lot of work on it recently. I think since the last time I uploaded a layout update video, I've basically built an entire seven foot tall mountain plaster closet and done a bunch of rock work, painted those rocks and doing a bunch of other little scenery projects as I procrastinate. So I've definitely been spending a lot of time down here working on the layout. But that's probably my favorite part of the hobby is doing all the scenery work. So yeah, that's what I've been up to is the layout looks like a whole new layout since you and John came to see it just three or four weeks ago, which was a blast. - We were very honored to be there, man. - Oh yeah, the amount of work you've done in, such as like you said, a short amount of time. And the, just the level of change that you've brought about to your layout, like it's kind of crazy to see. I'm not like just blowing smoke. It has been really, really insane. Some of the angles and stuff you've been getting on your layout, if you don't follow RJ on Instagram or why are you here listening to this, not that, go check out what he's been doing 'cause it's been kind of crazy. And especially considering that to be biased, but it is of an area that is near and dear to my heart, which we will also discuss further on as we get on. But no, it's been really great. And seeing it in person, you've done a lot of really good stuff with that space, man. So it was great getting to see it for real. - Really quickly too, I did watch the video and I'm really impressed with what you've done RJ. And I can kind of concur, like not a fair comparison back to H.O, but it was doing the H.O layout. It was my first time like creating levels, working with foam and actually like creating elevations. And I'm sure you can agree. It's like a game changer. - Levels, Jerry, levels. - Levels. - Levels, I don't want the level for that. - That's so good. - Just like the ancient intuition levels. - Yeah, but I'm sure we'll talk about it later, but introducing levels into a layout properly is definitely a big game changer. And it has taken my enjoyment for running trains around the layout up a bunch of notches compared to just two loops on a flat piece of plywood. - Yep. - For sure, for sure. John, what's your name, man? - I, I mean, Johnny, you pretty much covered it there, man. I have really just been working, man. Nothing really crazy new on the horizon. I mean, it was great talking with the catalog show and everything, getting some of the episodes produced. We last did out, it's been really fun. Our Glenn episode just dropped a little while ago. But other than that, no going out and hanging with everybody over the summer was fantastic. Palooza and you guys and then doing Long Island was just, it was a really, really, it was like one big vacation almost all the way through. So it was, no, I had a great time and no, I, I, there's really nothing else to say. Marvel month's been said. - Looking to expand your collection? Check out Trains.com. Trains is your go-to place for new and used model rarer products. They have everything ranging from engines, rolling stock, parts, track, and scenery. If you need it, they probably have it. With new discounts being added daily, you'll be sure to find something you like. Plus, Trains offers a newsletter, which keeps you up to date on new items, discounts, and upcoming promotions. We've been using Trains for years and we highly recommend their Stellar service. What's really cool is you can also collect points by buying Trains and using them on future purchases. With their awesome rewards program, you can earn points on every purchase that you can use for future discounts. Dedicated modelers can also join their private car membership to get exclusive access to new listings, earn five points per dollar spent, and unlock great benefits like no questions asked returns. Trains not only sells Trains, but it also buys them too. If you had a large collection or interested in downsizing and making some cash, you can head on over to sellmytrains.com. It doesn't get easier than that. You can find them using our affiliate link, www.trains.com/mmop, or if you wanna use our one-time promo code MMOP, you can get $10 off a single purchase on the Trains.com website. So check out Trains.com and start expanding your collection today. - All right, so let's go ahead and get right into our discussion here. And as always, we like to start out our topics with kind of an ice breaker, just to get the think juices pumping. So RJ, what do you think of the message out of RF range on your remote? How's that make you feel? What kind of motion is that illicit? - Yeah, it certainly elicits a lot of emotions, most of them frustration and anger. As much as I love, as much as I love MTH and Atlas and DCS, it's certainly something that we're using a 20, 25-year-old operating system in 2024 to operate our Trains. So usually when I see that pop up on my remote, I have to take a deep breath, just put the DCS remote down, turn off the track, turn off the whole layout, just walk away, get some air, and then come back to the layout and hope that the MTH gods are looking favorably upon me, and my remote is now working perfectly fine, which is usually the case. - Yeah, such is the fate of the person who has even won MTH locomotive. Who doesn't love the whistle, just sticking on when the locomotive has moved three feet away from you and is just constantly whistling non-stop, and just pretends it doesn't exist anymore in your library, good times. - I think the echoing of the soft keys, when you press like the forward signal, or it has like two to you four times, that's extremely frustrating. MTH is a very, you have to wire it a very particular way to get it to be a robot. It's not as forgiving as like TMS they seem like, but if you can wire it, you know, just the way it needs to be, it's fun. - Johnny, the fortutes is a feature. - The fortutes, yeah. You're getting double bang for your buck, come on. - That's a feature. - It's a backing signal. - Well, let's take that and we'll actually segue into getting started with our interview of RJ tonight. RJ, what did you start with in terms of manufacturer wise? Well, what manufacturer made your first train sets, your first train swing of childhood? - So this is, I think Johnny, you and I, I think we're the only ones to experience this. Maybe John has too, but my first train set was also an MTH Rail King, ready to run set. - As was mine. - As was mine, yep. - So mine was the Santa Fe Super Chief Rail King F3 Set from around 2004, 2005. And that's because I grew up watching the TM books. I love toy trains and like, I think the Lionell Christmas. And I think it's in the Lionell Christmas video where they do like this whole like 10 minute segment about the Lionell post-war Santa Fe passenger set. And I fell in love with the train and o-scale trains in general. So I asked Santa that for Christmas and Santa brought it for Christmas that year, but MTH at the time was the only one who was making that set in O-Gage. So that's what was left. And then after that, for Christmas or whatever, I would usually get a Lionell ready to run set from there on out because I was five years old and my dad wasn't technologically savvy. So I didn't actually know how to use all the features of that MTH set. So stuff like the electro couplers or the track was extremely frustrating to use as a five, six, seven-year-old where the Lionell stuff was a lot easier. So from there on out, I only had Lionell until I rediscovered MTH at a later date and fell back in love. - I can definitely agree with you there that MTH is definitely a bit of a challenge when you don't have some who's already kind of knows about it or if you don't have the resources. I was a bit more gifted in terms of the thing. I was a bit more fortunate in the side of I have that VHS that was like getting, you're ready to run starter set. Like near my rich Melvin, I believe. - Mr. Fancy. - Yeah, I watched it religiously because as I said multiple times in the show, I didn't get to chance really play with my trains. I got to watch videos of my trains. So kind of the whistle bell combinations were ingrained in my brain as a kid, but if you don't have that, you definitely would be missing out in quite a lot of it. But yeah, MTH starter sets were, oh my God, you were spoiled for choice when you grew up with one of those. They were really something. - You mentioned using like the bell and whistle keys to activate like the PFA and the couplers and the home yards. I would say I was probably about 12 or 13 years old. So I'd have this set for about eight years at this point. And I randomly hit like the bell and whistle button in a random combination and it played the PFA sound and my mind was blown because I never knew that was a thing in the eight years I own that train. I don't want to spend the greatest thing in the world. - To be fair, I can echo that sentiment because I mean, like I did know about the features, but I wasn't going to bother opening up my instruction book and reading it. Come on, I was what five? So I was five or six. I'm not going, I would literally, until I got a DCS remote when I think I was maybe, God, I don't even know, way, way, way later. Middle school, probably, late elementary school. I would, it would just, it would be random. So I would just like different comas and buttons to see what happens. Maybe the coupler fires, maybe freight announcement. We don't know. I probably heard my PFA twice in the whole time I owned the engine up until I got a DCS remote. So I can echo, I can feel that, man. I can definitely respect that. - I made the mistake of, so I had memorized, like the PFA and the front rear coupler ones, but I think that was one time I had, I think locked it in a way where it only did the drift chuff. And I didn't know how to factory reset it. And some poor MCH technician that I called, was helping like eight year old me try to get this engine factory reset. And he's like, yeah, I can't hear the combo. Can you put the phone closer in my genius brain? I was like, yeah, sure. And I put the microphone directly underneath the engine speaker. Poor guy went deaf. I fell so bad for him. - Oh my God. - Do you, I got to ask a tough question, RJ. Now this is something, for some people it's a concrete. Yes, some people don't have this anymore. Do you still have that original starter set? Did you sell it for better things? - So that's a funny story, Johnny. So I do still have the original set kind of. So around when I was 12, 13 years old, I went through this phase where I wanted to weather all of my trains. The problem was, is that I was a child and I didn't know how to do that. And the only thing I had was a can of black spray paint. So I spray painted the locomotive and then like kind of wiped away the paint. So it looked like soot. And then also like, this was when I was like starting to actually learn about MTH electronics. And they're like, well, you need to put in, you know, you need to change the battery inside of the locomotive or else the locomotive is gonna explode. So then I took apart the locomotive to put in a new battery, but I couldn't figure out how to put the shell back onto the locomotive. So basically I had this locomotive shell covered in black spray paint and looked horrible and I couldn't fit the shell back on. So I still have that locomotive somewhere and I still have all the passenger cars, but what I did was about two, three years ago, I was able to find a MTH Rail King Santa Fe F3 from the same time period. So I have it as a substitute for the set. So I still technically have the set, not in its original form, but it's like the question if if you change every single piece of a boat, is it still the same boat or is it a different boat? - Oh, I love that, dude, it's funny. I also, we've had parallels apparently, I also was gifted a spray paint can, probably not gifted, I probably just got it from somewhere and thought, hey, I'm Norm Charbonneau now. I was, I'm seven years old, I can weather this train and it was brown spray paint. And yeah, it didn't go well. Thankfully, I left the engine alone, but the cars got very heavily painted only in certain areas. So yeah, I can echo that. Sid actually still has one of my painted hoppers, but it literally, it went through like three owners and ended up back in a store. And he owns it now. And it's still got a giant pulled drippy splotch of brown paint in one area. But yeah, no, I think slightly destroying your childhood set is a rite of passage in a way. So good on you, sir. I think that's a mark of a weathered train collector there. - I don't think I've ever had a spray painting phase with trains or a weathering phase. I had my weathering phase as recent, but I did modify mine. - Is it a weathered train phase, Johnny? - Me, weathering never. But so I didn't do anything that was permanent to my trains in terms of like big things. I did ruin my railking GS2 on one side because the marker lights, one of them had broken off. And I was like, okay, well, I'll glue it back on so I put super glue on. But you know, eight year old me did understand that you need to give super glue time to set. So I was like, I'll just keep adding more and I just kept driveling down and driveling down. And then eventually I just gave up and I'm like, I have a screw at it. It's just pretend it's like an air horn or something. I don't know. So it still has those battle scars. I'll probably buy a new shell for it at some point when I stop being lazy and cheap. But what I did is actually quite interesting. So I take, so my F40, I had an Alaska F40. I took like notebook paper and I had like cut it into the shape and taped it to like almost like a slide on shell on top of the engine. And instead of like painting that paper shell, I would get like, I want to do like a bloody nose something, you know, bloody nose SP, you know, scheme. So I took like silver grayish duct tape to cover the main part of that shell. And then for the front use or like red duct tape. So I was my bloody nose diesel or whatever it was, look terrible, but you know, it was reversible. I could take it off and put it back on and whatever. But you know, as a kid, you know, we find ways to make what we want. Even if we look back and know what the heck are we doing? So, oh well, oh well. - That's all part of the evolution, the evolution. And that's a big theme with what we're talking about tonight. So RJ, you kind of started out with quite a bit of railking stuff and have moved now into scale or have in the past. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? - Yeah. And I think it plays into the bigger of, I guess coming to age in the hobby, if that makes sense. So I guess around 12, 13 years old, I really started getting back into the hobby, but you know, you're 12, 13 years old. So the only way you make money is by going around the neighborhood and milling lawns. So I would do that and I would save up money and, at the time, your choices of like a $300 locomotive was an MTH railking locomotive with all the really cool sounds and features that I could still activate with my conventional controller. Or at that time, Lainau was making full scale locomotives, but conventional only. And, you know, railking makes a whole lot more sense in that situation if you want more sounds and features. And then, you know, later on in middle school and in high school, drifted out of trains, but then when I started getting back into it, I was a broke college kid, you know, working part-time while going to college. And yet again, railking is the perfect situation in that case. And at the time, my layout had a maximum of 036 curves 'cause all the track on the layout came from Lainau, ready to run starter sets. So railking was that perfect introductory into the world of full scale sounds and features, even though the trains themselves weren't full size. Then COVID hit and you start mess, and that's when I really started getting into the YouTube and meeting people. And then you start seeing all these really cool scale, full size trains, and it's COVID. So I was working online and I literally could not spend money on anything else. So then I can't remember what my first, like truly scale, full sounds of motive was, but once you get one of those, everything else, all that railking just seems like jumping to that point on. You get bitten by a bug, it's a disease, and now I'm full scale and my wallet hates me for it, but I love the way it looks. - Oh yeah, that's, I feel like that is a good, natural progression. Yeah, and there's something to be said to, you know, a lot of the time you can see, you know, sometimes people will kind of get a hodgepodge going at the beginning and there's nothing wrong with that where you have some scale, you have some traditional scale and you know, they either make it work, they blended, but the fact that you chose to, you knew your constraints, you're like, all right, I wanna do this really well with what I've got. So we're gonna go all in on something that can look coherent and be of a high quality that I want. That's a really smart way of doing things that I think not a lot of people think about on the offset, that's definitely a lot more forward thinking than, you know, I mean, for me example, like during college, man, I did, you know, I did post-war, I was like, all right, I want sheep, I want durable, reliable, and super abundant. I'm gonna go post-war. So I did nothing but post-war for a long time, right up until about, like you said, COVID, when I met you guys and then what you know how, like you said, when you meet everybody, suddenly you see all the fancy toys and it's like a hold on a second. I think I hit the glass ceiling here, I need to up my game a little bit. And then like you said, the wallet hates you and life goes on from there. So good for you for getting a plan together from the outset and, you know, choosing to make that choice with Rauking. And like you said, Rauking is a fantastic thing, it's still great, you know. If you do nothing but Rauking and, you know, I mean, Johnny, you have Rauking scale, you know, the FP45, right? I mean, there's still good Rauking products. Oh, for sure, yeah, 100% man. - I was very integrated with Rauking and I think Johnny can attest to this as well because I was, I wasn't really the same boat as RJ. I was basically 036 and an 048 curve and that pretty much means, for the most part, Rauking and semi-scale steam. And then, you know, you could get away with both like scale diesel engines but then are your diesel engines bigger than your steam engines? And then you get this kind of weird kind of scale issue on it. But man, it just takes that, I'll tell you what, it just takes that first scale steam engine to be on your layout. And man, that's it, that's it, just takes one. And you are like, this thing is awesome. Like, okay, I think maybe I gotta go, I gotta start to go and scale here at this point. - Yeah, and I just wanna be clear, like we're not knocking on Rauking here. It is a fantastic product and I love my Rauking products. And if it wasn't for Rauking, I wouldn't be in the hobby today. But like another thing about this natural progression from Rauking to Premiere, what I don't think I've ever talked about this, like in a public setting on YouTube or whatever. So miniature models podcast exclusive. - Exclusivity. - I was not into trains all that much until COVID. Like I had Thomas the Tank Engine growing up and I always had these models, but I knew nothing about the trains themselves. I just thought like, oh, these things look cool and they run around in circles. I had never ridden on an Amtrak train until 2021. I, first time I rode an Amtrak train in 2019, I guess it was 2019. I didn't even know what an amp fleet was, what type of locomotive was on the front, which might be blowing the minds of some people now with how much I know and reverberate in my videos. So when it came to collecting, my focus wasn't necessarily on those scale items because I didn't know what scale was. Where I grew up on Long Island, we have the Long Island Railroad and we have this dinky freight service that usually runs overnight. So you never actually get to see any of these GP40s or small switch or locomotives, mucking about on the main line. So, you know, I, before going to college, I had seen maybe one freight train in my life. So, you know, the concept of scale or like an actual locomotive just wasn't a thing in my mind because I had never seen it before. - What's really cool, man. You know, you and I talk quite a bit outside of all of this and everything. And I know what a big history buff you are and how like diligent you are with research to the fact that you, you know, you, like you said, you didn't know a lot of stuff and to where you've gotten now in that short amount of time is really, really like admirable. Like you've done your homework, man. - Yeah, and just think about the 20 years of my life, really before learning the history of railroads, that was 20 years spent learning U.S. in world history. So think about how much of that useless knowledge I have stored up in my head for. Absolutely no reason. - See, we use that now to get the manufacturers to do what we want because we just, you know, we give them all this info and like go make what we want now. Do this. Ryan, come on, we're gonna be coming for you. We know you listen. Get buckle up. Oh man. - RFNP. - Yes, RJ is the, RJFNP. He's the great ambassador. I'm just a prophet or guy, yeah. What's the word, disciple, disciple of the RFNP lore. But yes. So scale stuff is, God, it is just, it's really something, 'cause you can buy, I mean, you can buy quite a bit when it comes to railking stuff because it is such a good product. It is very well priced and it is really good value for money. And then when you do make that transition to scale, it really forces you to make those decisions. It's like, all right, what do I actually like? What am I really a fan of that I'm gonna drop, you know, you know, 600 to a foul on an engine or, you know, a passenger train. Like you really gotta do that lore research and history and all that kind of stuff, which I love. I mean, since I've met all you guys, I have done like way, way, way more research into this kind of stuff to like really make those decisions. So I think we can all kind of echo that sentiment. What do you guys think? - Yeah, for sure. Just going scale and really going whole hog with it. It's just so much more fun. The trains get more impressive. You feel more immersed in it if that's your thing. And you know, just the models are more impressive overall. How about you, Matt, when I came to you, when you made that jump from railking to scale? - What was the question again? I'm sorry. - No worries, just reiterate. Like what was like when you started moving away from railking and sort of buying more scale pieces, you know, how was that like for you? - So I was amazed like, you know, you've gone, I've gone to other people's houses and like seeing scale engines, right? But when you have it on your own, the layout, I think the first time, I think the first major scale steam engine I ever owned was my Santa Fe Northern, which is owned by another member of the podcast here. And taking that out of the box and then putting it and just holding it and then putting it on the layout, it was just like, I was like amazed. I'm like, God, this thing is humongous. And it's just weird. It's like you've seen them before, you've held them before, you've looked on videos before, you know, it's, you've gone through all that. But when you actually have it on your own layout and it's like on your tracks and, you know, near everything that you've landscaped and built, it's just, it's an amazing, it's an amazing thing. And again, I want to go back to what RJ said before, like this isn't a knock toward railking or anything, either, because I love railking. I still own railking products. Like I have all of my subways, which will never ever leave my collection. In fact, I have another plot next to me at the cemetery just for my, my subject questions, though. They'll be very next to me. But no, it's an amazing thing moving into, into scale. And like I said before, it just takes that one. And you're kind of like, wow, this is nice. Like, I gotta, I gotta find some more. - It's the Toy Story thing. I don't want to play with you anymore. Just, it's so dangerous. No, yeah, railking is still fantastic stuff. I, there's plenty of free cars that I have that are scale sized, you can get nowhere else, but in railking. RJ, one thing I do want to ask, what is you kind of talked about that? What was your first like scale piece you bought ever? That was the, the beginning of the end. - So I was, I was thinking about this, because I said earlier, I wasn't quite sure, and I wanted to try to remember. And it was a Lionel Legacy New York central 10-wheeler. - Yes. - To get, so it was not from the, the, well, it's obviously not from the run that's coming out soon. It's from the previous run. And to get that with the LED light marker lights, and the steaming whistle, like being able to own a locomotive that had the steaming whistle feature. That's like, all right boys, pack it up. We're going full scale now, even though that was still a small locomotive, and I have a preference for smaller locomotives. But owning that was like, okay, you know, this whole scale thing completely unlocked for me. And funny thing is, I actually ended up selling that locomotive because I ended up not being a huge fan of it. But yeah, that was the one that opened up this dangerous door for me. - Want to support your favorite O scale podcast and rock some awesome merch? Well, now you can. We've teamed up with redbubble.com and have come up with a great selection of gear that you can get right now. They have everything from shirts, hoodies, stickers, mugs, bags, you name it. Heck, you can even get a wall clock with us on it. All this great stuff and more at redbubble.com. Links are down in the show notes. So grab yourself some gear and rock some awesome podcast merch. (engine revving) - It's a very cool locomotive indeed. I'm actually going to ask you a question here, RJ, a couple of questions. Let's move more towards discussion about your layout and the evolutions to that. So speaking of transitioning from scale, obviously there was one piece after I was knowing you that moved you to want to expand your layout and develop it further to accommodate for a specific piece. But before that, tell us about your first layout. What kind of curves did it have? What did it look like? How did that develop? And then what led you to doing your next layout via V2, if you will? - My first layout was like, I think everybody else, it was a piece of four by eight plywood on the cold cement floor in my basement. And it was a loop of MTH real tracks with the passing siding for my Santa Fe F3 set. And eventually that went up on four legs and a second four by eight piece of plywood joined it so it formed like a miniature L shape. And then from there, I had a giant mountain on one table. So recurring theme there. And four loops of track, two loops on each one. And eventually that turned into just two loops of track between the two tables. And that was like that for gosh, almost. I wanna say that I first built the first layout. It would have been like 2005, 2006. And then that layout came down in 2019. So that layout lasted almost a dozen years. That one went through many iterations of track plan, but for the most part stayed the same shape and size and did my tweaks on it here and there. And then version two, which is, I actually going back for a second. My original layout is actually the first video on my YouTube channel. I think I did one or two videos of that layout, which are way back on my channel. But I actually had a YouTube channel back in 2012, 2013 when I was really getting into trains back then called Long Island NYC. And I uploaded a ton of videos back then, but they were, got awful. Ended up getting bullied in school because of them. So I deleted all of them, which I wish I still had a few of those videos for more memories of that layout. But then 2019, winter of 2019, the part of the basement in my parents' house where the train layout stood was unfinished. And my dad was getting too ready to retire from his job. And his retirement project was to finish the rest of the basement, which means the train layout had to come down. So I built version two of my train layout. And I thought I was future proofing myself by having the outside loop be 048, the inside loop be 036. And I thought I would never need a train that required anything larger than 048 because at the time, my largest locomotive was a railking SD-45. Sorry, that was a long-winded answer. - No, you're fine, man. - No, dude, that's perfect. - But yeah, I like seeing that the development when it comes to layouts like that. 'Cause, you know, we, as kids, we tend to move things around a bit, but future proofing is one of those things that you always think, unless you're doing like, oh, 80, oh, 90, oh, 100, you know, you think, oh, you know, it's good enough. And I know, Matt, you had quite a big jump when you upgraded your curves. That's just a pretty substantial upgrade for you when you did your layout. But yeah, once you do those big curves, man, you can't look at your, like, even if it's by a little bit. - Although, I'm a huge, I was probably one of the biggest cheaters in Oascale, when it came to entrance. I'd be like, you know what, this looks like it can make it. I'll just buy it and it'll make it. Luckily, I think I've been batting. So I'm batting, you know, if we're talking about baseball here, I'm batting like like 9.95 here, okay. The only thing that I ever had a problem with, I'm trying to remember what it was and, oh, the scale Pioneer Zephyr did not like, I tried to get away with it and I couldn't. But everything else I ever bought when I was back in '48, seemed to be okay or barely made it through. Let's put it that way. - Yeah, '48 and '60 will definitely like, push your limits, like you will find out what your pieces can do and what will not behave on those two curve radii. (laughing) I gotta say, I'm sorry, RJ, go ahead. - I was gonna say real quick that the best was one day, Matt, are you DM's me? And you're like, hey, do you think an OCEllo can do O60 curves? And I'm like, oh. (laughing) - Yeah, I remember that. (laughing) - I think so. (laughing) - I was really hoping you were gonna say yes, but. (laughing) - It tilts, it's designed to go around tight curves. That was your logic, wasn't it? It's a taco. (laughing) - Oh my God. I was gonna say, RJ, good for you, man, for sticking it out with the YouTube stuff. I don't know if anybody else can echo the sentiment, but I remember getting teased as well for the train love in school. So props to you for not giving in and still sticking it out in the long run. - Yeah, absolutely. - Well, I did give it up there for a little bit, but we're back and it's funny that like, a lot of the people who teased me back then, actually, like, they watch my videos today. They love it, so. (laughing) - That's the best revenge, right? - It's funny how like, the difference is in maturity between like 12 and 13 year old boys and 24 and 25 year old men. - Hey, you wanna happen again? - There's also a difference between like, oh, look at RJ's got 300 and now, hey, look at RJ's got 7,000. Hey, you know, I knew this guy in high school. He was like my best friend. (laughing) He got way back. (laughing) - Good stuff. So from layout number, that was what? Layout number one or layout number two? Like official layout number one, correct? - So that was officially layout number one and then the 048, 036 curves. That's layout number two. - Okay. So what was, what prompted the next iteration? 'Cause I freaked, your layouts involve so many, so much over the years, but just to kind of keep track here. So what was the next version of the layout? What was the reason for expanding and what changed? - So the, so that layout I built, the layout 2.0, I built that during COVID and then Lionel went and announced the legacy assellas and during college, I rode the assella a bunch of times and so I felt I really need a model of this. And saved like hack and I, you know, pre-ordered it and I bought a model of it. The problem is, is that, you know, as I just said, my outer curve on that layout was 048 and the assella needs 072 to operate. So at the time, like, I think the assells arrived in February of 2022 and I went to IKEA and I bought 12 feet worth of shelving to, so to display it in my apartment, but dumb RJ at the time didn't realize that the full assella set is actually 14 feet long. So one of the cars had to stay in the box because I didn't know how to measure. - Those passenger trains are space hogs. - Yeah, and it stinks because I love passenger trains. So then summer of 2022, I was living in DC at the time, finishing up school, starting a job down in DC. And I moved back to New York for three or four months. And I figured, well, I'm home and I wanted to be able to run this train set that I just spent a lot of money on. And I felt that I could do better scenery wise over the, you know, I've stuff learning over the last two years. So I thought, what the heck let me tear down my layout and completely rebuild it. And this was like during the same time where I said, like, I'm quitting YouTube for dumb reasons, which I'll explain one day. I think the guys on here know it, but. And so I rebuilt layout version number three in about a month. So the layout that you've seen on my YouTube channel for like the last two years, I built that in a month. And it was serviceable, but, you know, learned a lot of lessons building it and, you know, knew that that wasn't going to be the last layout that I built. - Now that layout was, I think that's the one I remember the most 'cause I think I started following you and we started talking around your V2 layout. And then the one we upgraded, I remember I was, we were, you know, we knew each other a lot better when you upgraded to O72 and your latest, your previous iteration there. The scenery was great. I love the shots you were able to make all the little scenes and vignettes. I think that my favorite one has to be the one where you had, I believe it was a fishing scene that you had done and the water effects were really nice. The framing was beautiful. You always had a backdrop up that I remember as well, which made for very immersive shots. The scenery was really nice on that one. I really enjoyed that layout and it was nice to have, to see your scale stuff feel, to really stretch out and have these nice gentle sweeping curves. It was a really nice layout. - Yeah, thank you, Johnny. That means a lot coming from you because your layout also has fantastic scenery, which I'm very jealous of. Even though it is the desert, I totally cares about the desert. - I'm a master of tile grub, man. That's my secret. - One thing, oh, I'm sorry. I was gonna lodge you a bit here, too. I was gonna say one thing I've always appreciated about, especially about that layout, 'cause that was kind of when I got to know you was when you were working on that one. Two things you've always done, that I've loved. One, you have always incorporated some kind of extra train feature into it, mainly using super streets, which I don't know anybody else in our community that uses super streets. Madar, did you have super streets on your layout? I'm trying to remember. - I didn't. It was something I was gonna plan on doing, but the only person, at least in Chicago, here is Sean, and he's gotta, I think he has a super street setup for a little trolley. - Yes, yes. And I think PGH also has some super treats. - Yeah, it was something that I wanted to do, but on my layout, I just, I couldn't fit it in the town area. It would, I would have to demolish like the entire inside of the layout to incorporate it. So it's something that if you have the room, do it, but it's definitely something that you should definitely plan for before you start building stuff. - Absolutely. - And I hope to eat one day, when I do build another old scale layout, it's 100% gonna do a super streets little trolley line, which I'll have to back you on this as well, John, is that's probably my favorite part of RJ of your layout, is the little commuter line inside with the town, like that absolutely fantastic, I love it. - That and the other thing was the personalization. Like you have always done really neat personalization to your layout in terms of like mainly like the advertising and stuff, and we can get into that more in the new layout discussion. But those are two things I've always appreciated about your layouts. - Thank you. And I mean, everybody talks about like their inspiration for the layouts, but I don't wanna toot my own horn, but I feel like I have a unique perspective when it comes to building layouts. And that is as I feel the train layout should be more like a painting. And the trains are just a moving part of that painting. Like I don't like having a lot of track on a train layout. Like I feel the layout should be telling a story. And so by doing those small scenes and really good scenery and customizable advertising or, you know, including things from the real world that I've seen and I've experienced, like it makes the layout mean so much more to me, which I think makes me work on it and focus on it more, which creates a better end result. So like you guys just see a random Coca-Cola advertisement on the side of the building and, you know, which is cool, but there's a story behind that. That's a real life Coca-Cola advertisement on the side of a building in Dayton, Tennessee that I went and saw, you know, years ago, but, you know, it's just having small little memories from my life hidden in this painting with these trains passing through it. - That's a really interesting way of putting in that, RJ, I really like that. Just from, I can relate though, 'cause with my current layout, my girlfriend, I have worked quite hard on it together and I've been very fortunate in the fact that she's an artist. So it's very easy to commission her for a custom billboard or for graphics for a custom car or I even picked up doing modern stuff. 90, in a modern, I do 90 Santa Fe, but where I can let her graffiti a car or however she likes it to be and it gives that extra bit of, you know, inside references and stuff that we enjoy. It's an expression of us and that's really what a layout is. It's an expression of yourself, you know, some people like to incorporate parts of their lives or things that they like and it is a representation of you. It's the little world that you create and I really like what you said about incorporating trains and scenery together. You know, a lot of us, you know, a lot of us are operators, you know, we like running our trains and that's great. Having maximum track and maximum switches and all that, it makes for interesting operations. But at the end of the day, you know, sometimes you wanna, trains gold places and you wanna kind of lose yourself in the immersion aspect and that's why scenery is so important. If you can build those little vignettes, those little dioramas around the layout, you can sit there and watch a train go by and you feel like the train is actually going somewhere, you know, even if with a small layout, like mine, for example, I block out most of the layout from a certain, if you're sitting in one part of the layout, you can't see other half and it allows for you to feel like the train is coming in and going to other places and it makes for a more enjoyable learning experience for me personally. And I really liked that with your layouts, which you've always had that kind of vision in mind 'cause it really shows when you take videos or you're allowed when you're running session. I really appreciate that. - It's like a theater stage almost. You have the lighting, you have, you know, the wings, you have your players, you have your set and everything works together to create a story, a little production of a time, a place, a moment, whether you're staging, you know, a static scene or something dynamic. It all goes into, like you said, it's a piece of art. It is an expression of you. It's like a fingerprint. No one's layout is ever gonna be the same. No one's weathering. No one's models are gonna, you know, operate and wear out the same way. It's all an expression of our soul and an expression of what we've experienced. That's, no, that's exactly it. I couldn't put it any better than you guys did. - Let's take that here and let's expand on it a little bit more. Let's move forward. RJ, you've torn the layout done once again and you're working in the latest iteration, as you mentioned at the beginning of the show, and getting, talking about your philosophy about how you like to design and build your layouts, you've really taken the, taken that aspect of having a scene where the train is, you know, an actor in it, but building that stage, build that the whole layout performs on. That's kind of being your focal point with your most recent layout. What is the inspiration behind this one and what challenges be faced with the current layout? - Great Cosmo Kramer is my true inspiration, as I quoted him earlier, levels. So going back to the version three layout, there were definitely some problems with it. Like I said, I built it in a month, so it wasn't perfect. It was using Lionel Fast Track, but the biggest problem is that when I'm running trains on the outside loop, you can't see trains running on the inside loop, which really upset me because, you know, I'd have these, you know, huge autoracks, but if I wanted to run them, then forget about using my other loop of track because you couldn't see it with the autoracks running. So I wanted to create a layout where you're able to see the scenery the entire time, because like I said, I think that the trains are just a piece, or a moving piece of a painting, which is a train layout. So I wanted to be able to actually see the layout while operating my trains. And I recently moved back to New York where the layout is, thanks to work. But I spent about six years in Washington, D.C. and I absolutely loved it. And one of my favorite things to do when I was in Washington, D.C. was to drive out to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. And for those of you guys who don't know, I bet there's even people who live in the D.C. area who have only vaguely heard of Harper's Ferry. And it's this small town right where Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia meet West Virginia's weird panhandle thing that sticks out to the east. And history buffs might know it because that's where John Brown's raid took place before the Civil War. But it was a big junction for the Baltimore, Ohio railroad for 150 years before it became CSX and the Chesney system. But it's an amazing place. The town still looks like how it did back in the 1800s. Beautiful hiking, beautiful scenery. And I was able to incorporate things that I really love like the mountains and the forest, as well as older architecture, but it still be in a modern setting. So I felt when I was rebuilding this new layout that I wanted to try to do a close approximation to Harper's Ferry. I'm working in a space that's smaller than eight by 12. So rebuilding a whole town in that space obviously wasn't going to happen. But I just have so many great memories from Harper's Ferry that I wanted to try to do something, which is why I am calling it Maple's Ferry after my dog Maple because it's kind of like Harper's Ferry, but it's different. It's my version of Harper's Ferry. So why not change the name of it? - It's very clever. I do really like that. And it's always nice to have a bit of inspiration from your life in that, to try to incorporate a bit of a real place into it rather than everyone suffers from the same, to loops of track with the town and the middle syndrome and to give you the way that you set yours up with the elevation, with the mountains and everything. I was actually watching some of the footage I took at your place when we were there earlier last month. And there are so many different shots and different sight lines on your layout where it is a joy to watch trains roar on it because it is, the trains are part of the layout, but they're not the focal point. It is a part of this, the grand masterpiece. And I really enjoy your layout. It's beautiful. And I love the connection with your personal experience in it too. - One of the comments I've gotten the most uploading videos onto you to rebuilding the layout, I've probably gotten this comment 20 or 30 times. And it's RJ, your bottom loop, the trains are in a huge tunnel. You're not going to see them, what's the point? And I respond, well, that is the point. I don't need to see my trains run the entire time they're running around in circles. It gives you, even though my layouts only eight by 12, having these huge tunnels gives the illusion that these trains are actually going somewhere and you're not expecting them to just pop out when they do. And even though my scenery is nowhere close to complete at this point, I can honestly say I enjoy it more sitting down and watching trains run around on this layout, even though it's just foam and plywood basically at this point that I did on my previous layout with the scenery completed. - Oh, dude, it's complete like night and day. Like you said, that's a great point. And it's one of the master model railroad techniques that's always talked about about having large tunnels that can hide a complete train to give the illusion of distance, of time, space, everything. 'Cause when that train's gone, it's gone. You don't know where it is. So once it leaves your mind and your mind's eye, you can visualize it going somewhere else versus just being, you don't need to see the train all the time to be entertained. It's just circling around in a big loop. It's much better to have it go away. So I'm really glad you brought that up because that is one of the most important techniques in model railroading. And I'm gonna echo Johnny said, first of all, also, as a native of the area to have someone who is from out of state, who grips somewhere else, to, you have really embraced the Washingtonian sort of area and mindset so much that like, I just can't think of you as someone from this area, like, yeah, he's from New York, but he's also from here. So I bestow upon you the, if not, we haven't unofficially already. You are officially one of us, one of us. 'Cause you have just run with it. Dude, you teach me about stuff about our area for real. Someone who's lived here his whole life. - There's a, so I used to live in like DC proper, like inside the city itself. Like I could look out my window and see the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral. And there's a saying for people who live in the city itself, is that everybody who lives in DC actually isn't from DC, everybody's from somewhere else, which is reason, which is the reason why driving in DC is actually the worst because you have people who learn to drive from all over the country and all over the world, driving in one place. But yeah, like this goes back to me being a history buff. Like I just, I love learning about the places I'm in, the places I was living. 'Cause it helps you understand the people and everything about it. So yeah, I definitely, I loved my time in Washington, DC, even if I didn't love the university I was going to or work or whatever else. But I don't think I have lived my last day in the Washington DC area, yeah. - And joining this week's topic, you can join in on the conversation too on a community discord server. We have a lot of different discussion channels ranging from showing off your collection, discussing the latest and greatest in the industry, a buy and sell form, and even a voice channel we can hop on call and talk trains with us late into the night. We're a little over 300 strong and we'll love to have you join us too. Check out the invite link to our community discord down in the show notes, reading knowledge of the rules, and introduce yourself and start chatting. We have a great team of moderators who make sure all are welcome to end respected. So what are you waiting for? Come on down and join us in on the fun. Now let's talk some trains. (upbeat music) - Ooh, I'm happy to hear that. When it doesn't hurt that we have some fantastic stuff down here, it's just how good we are. (laughing) But no, man, it's been so great seeing you. When you told me that you were doing Harper's ferry, I was like, yes, I was so freaking pumped and it has not disappointed one bit. I still cannot believe that your layout is in, 'cause you have not expanded the table like the length of the table at all. It's the same dimensions as before, correct? In terms of the footprint, it is exactly the same, correct? - Correct, same footprint, haven't added on a single centimeter. Backdrops are still there. Everything's the same, just what's on top of that plywood. - It is crazy how much like, I don't even know how to say it, just the amount of like girth you have given it and to where it seems like it's double the size now. And I mean, to be fair, you have probably about doubled the surface area in terms of the height and everything, but yeah, it's been an amazing transformation to watch and it really shows how much the vertical can be accentuated. - Another thing I really wanna praise your effort, your hard work on RJ is something that I personally see a lot of people doing in a very weird way, but you've managed to do this expertly, which was your mountain. Not only is it beautifully crafted, and it blends your upper or lower level perfectly, but you don't suffer from sudden magnetism, which is like with small ads, you have a lot of people who do their town on one side, and then there's this perfect 90 degree mountain that just shows up out of nowhere and it's just this box with like a little bit of mountain stuck on top of it, and that becomes another box that it leaves. Like you have this very natural looking mountain that's been incorporated, and the fact that you have your upper level with the retaining walls, it gives it a sense of purpose, it balances out, it makes it really pleasing to the eye, and that's really hard to do, just to kind of have that be incorporated in such a natural way. I've got my little hill in my layout, but obviously it kind of just shows up out of nowhere, and I plan to try to correct that when I eventually get around to doing that, but for such a large scale mountain, you did such a great job, and I bet Matt R has something he can probably comment on, since he actually did his first mountain not too long ago. - No, no, absolutely. I love the space that you used. You know, and making a mountain, it's, if you've never done it before, it can be kind of like, where in the world do I start at here? And one of those things where you just start layering it down and it starts to take mold and focus, and I agree with you, Johnny, like I like the way that, RJ, like it just, it seems, has a very nice picturesque kind of like style to it, and your tunnels are like really long too, which is fantastic because, you know, you want your train to go in there, you don't want to like to go in there and then come out like two seconds later, right? You want this like, you know, these trains to get lost inside of this tunnel, and then all of a sudden they appear at the end, and it just allows for this kind of like, you know, hey, my train went on this really long trip, and it's finally coming out of the tunnel. So yeah, well done for sure. - Yeah, that shot of the video you posted of, it's 89 coming out of the top tunnel with the coach train, and the smoke just rolling under the roof of the tunnel, and then just coming out and just, oh, it's such a beautiful shot. - Yeah, like I thank you guys for all your kind words, and I'm kind of sitting here laughing because there are small things about my mountain where it does kind of suffer from random mountain syndrome, but it's just like things that I notice because I'm staring at it constantly, and they're all lessons for next time, but, you know, it's also I'm working with a limited space, so I'm, you know, fighting forces that can't necessarily be changed, so I'm okay with it for now. But yeah, there are a lot of things that you don't necessarily think about with a mountain until you actually build one, and one of those things is a tunnel lining. You know, you don't want the inside of your mountain to be, you know, hollow, because then when you put a camera down and you try to take a picture of your train coming through the tunnel, you know, all you're gonna see is cardboard lattice and plaster cloth, and it's not going to look good. So I had to, you know, build out of foam board, you know, a tunnel portal and then wrap it with crumpled up cardboard paper painted to look like rocks. So this way, it kind of looks like an actual train tunnel, and you can have that effect of smoke that's trapped inside the tunnel and comes out of the tunnel with the motion of the train. But yeah, there are like, there are so many things that I've learned over the mountain building process of like, you know, it's just not build a mountain there, like 10, 12 different things that you have to think about before building that mountain. - Yeah, no, dude, you've really, again, like I said, the fact that it just sort of kind of came about of nowhere literally and figuratively has been really interesting to watch your process of doing this, 'cause clearly, you know, like I said, you've thought about it, you've planned this out, you know, throughout your journey, so to speak, that we've had through your layouts and now that you are here, you know, you've done a lot with just this one, this one move up from this, you know, flat layout into this multi, the levels, Jerry. I don't want the levels. Now that you have gotten to that point, you know, kind of what do you think might be, you know, what is something you want to go into possibly for a future? Like, do you want to do another mountain? Do you want to do like a whole range? Do you want to do what things that you're doing in this one might you want to incorporate into a larger layout in the future? - I definitely want to do like a huge mountain scene on a future layout, maybe something with the logging line, you know, whether that be O-scale or with O and 30, like a train of clues at John and everybody listening to this can go look up a Charlie Stoyas layout, but he has a nice logging area on his layout that I really-- - Yes. - But I would say my dream layout has three sections. So you have a mountain and rural area, and then you have New York City with Penn Station, a subway line, and then like a long island area. And, you know, I have these grand visions of if I have this huge basements, but, you know, who knows if that'll ever happen. But, you know, growing up on Long Island, you know, we obviously have no mountains on Long Island. So, you know, during college and growing up, I'd go to upstate New York and when I was in college, I'd visit the Appalachian Mountains down south. And, you know, personally, I just loved the mountains and being able to replicate that in, you know, o-scale is really nice because I can't look out my window and see mountains, but I can go down in the basement and see my own miniature mountain and have a little sense of nature. - I love that, man. I absolutely love that. Now, a big thing I think you've kind of wanted to talk about and we wanted to discuss with you because you have gone through this and it seems like you have been quite methodical in the way you've planned things out. I mean, you know, Dubai has some accidentals here and there, but you do seem like you've always had a plan for what you've wanted to do. And, you know, as we've kind of discussed, even just at the very beginning of this show, you know, when you are a model railroader, this isn't a cheap hobby. This takes quite a bit of planning and budgeting to make this, you know, happen well where you're not literally house poor with a great model railroad that's, you know, the only thing there. So what are some kind of like your methodology for kind of planning these things out for budgeting and just sort of, you know, getting these more expensive models like we've talked about moving from the more affordable railking stuff into higher end where you've been getting Golden Gate Depot and even some more stuff which you've been kind of delving into recently. Would you like to talk with us a little bit about that? - Yeah, I'd love to. Here's a little fun fact about RJ the person is that I actually, part of my college degree involved economics. So I have a little bit of a finance background. But like one thing that really frustrates me in the hobby, like with other people, I don't know if that's a good way to word it, but one thing that I see other people doing in a hobby that personally frustrates me is not budgeting correctly. Because I don't know about everybody else, but one day I don't wanna be living in my parents' house. And I think everybody should have that goal. And I, honestly, I spend hours each month budgeting not only for personal, you know, personal life things, but also for just train addiction. Because if you just buy everything that you see that you like, which I think all of us have gotten to that habit at one point in this hobby where you're just buy, buy, buy. But definitely over the last two, three years, I picked up a few different budgeting techniques, which has certainly helped me a lot, not only grow my savings, but also keep those model train, keep model train spending in check. And I guess like a few of those tips is first, know how much money each month you want to put aside into personal savings. So I take a certain amount of money each month and I put it in a special bank account, so I cannot touch it. This way you're not tempted to spend that money on model trains. And second is pre-ordering. And pre-ordering is not only important because it saves you money because you're more likely to get a cheaper price is that it helps you budget. You know, if you pre-order something a line now, you know, it's going to take about nine to 12 months to, for it to arrive. With MCH, you're looking at 12 to 18 months and same for Atlas, you're looking at about 18 months for an item to arrive. So, you know, for a lot of people, that $1,000 seam locomotive is, you know, a scary thing to think about to buy, like it's nowhere near your price range. But if you save $100 a month over the span of 10 months, then you have that $1,000 for that $1,000 locomotive, which makes these bigger price tag items seem less scary. I ordered seven of the Golden Gate Depot super liners and view liners. And you can do the math, they're about $400 a car. I ordered seven of them. And when you add on shipping and container fees and everything else Golden Gate Depot does, you know, that's a really big number, but, you know, Golden Gate Depot and third rail, they do layaway payments. So you have about six months from when you have to start paying to when they arrive. So you can break up that payment over those months. You know, making sure you're not ordering outside of your means and canceling pre-orders, because then you're leaving the hobby stores with extra product, which will probably be difficult for them to sell. And the other thing that I started about a year ago is that I sat down one day and I created a list of every locomotive that has ever been made or could ever be made. They haven't been made in O scale yet. Maybe one day they would be. Every locomotive I could possibly ever want. And if a locomotive comes up for sale and it's not on that list, I do not buy it. Because it might be cool in that moment, but when I sat down to make this list, it wasn't something I desperately needed. And I went from buying a lot of locomotives a year or two, maybe just one or two off-hand purchases. And other than that, all of my orders are pre-orders. And this way, I'm able to budget and save my money and I have a year plus to save for all of these purchases. So that's the end of my rant. - But you mix a lot of good points though. I think the most common thing I see when it comes to as content creators. And I had this view too, when I got back into the hobby. You see a lot of folks who have not pre-ordered before. You see all the catalog shows or the catalog videos and stuff and people are saying, "I'm getting this and this and this." And people tend to forget, people assume that when you are ordering one of those things that you need to put all of that money up front. And if that was the case, good and as great as I don't know where you're looking, these funds from. But realistically, pre-orders, a lot of times, a lot of hobby shops will give you the opportunity to either do a very small down payment or they take payment once the item arrives. And it's during that time, you should take like a year or maybe more like you said before for those items to arrive. And that is really a good time for you to be able to save up that money. A lot of us are still young. And it's not easy to get all that funding immediately. This is an expensive hobby. And it's really important to kind of learn that those budgeting tips like you mentioned before and know what you can realistically save within that time. There's a lot of us out there, myself included at times where you think, "Oh, if I can pre-order this, I'll have X amount of money saved by that time." But if you don't keep, like you mentioned a list, I have a list of all of my pre-orders I've put aside for myself where I list the prices of things, what they cost and visually see how much it is and do the math and go, "Okay, you know, maybe I've, oh, it's just a small diesel, but a small diesel, multiple small diesels, they add up. And if you're not on top of that, it'll get you." You know, and this is a hobby. You know, you don't want your hobby to, your de-scressor to be your stressor. I think that's an important thing that, you know, folks tend to forget when they're getting back in the hobby 'cause it's very easy to go train crazy when you finally have your own income and you can finally afford the things that you want. - And Johnny, you make a great point there as well. Kind of with, above you with the whole content creation thing, you know, buy things that make you happy. Don't buy things for other people, buy things for you in moderation. Don't feel you have to, you know, jump on the no pun intended hype train and, you know, buy something just for the clout of it. Like, that's just gonna get you into, you know, a bad place. And one thing I've always tried to keep myself honest with, one thing, RJ, that you said of making the list for yourself and the keeping honest, tell your friends like you've done to, it's like hold me to this 'cause we do that with each other. We're like, "Hold me to this list, don't." And I try to do the same thing. I'm like, "If I've said this, you know, this is what I'm doing, I'm not gonna get anything outside of this." We keep each other, having friends in this hobby keeps each other honest. And my favorite saying, if you're gonna be actually planning to buy something on the spot, like full price, like say you haven't pre-ordered it, say you walk into a hobby shop and you see it on the wall, you were like, "I'm not gonna pre-order this. I'm gonna wait to see when it comes out." You can't afford something unless you can pay for it twice. That's the way I've always thought about it. It's like, if I don't have the ability to buy this thing twice, then you shouldn't buy it. Like that's always the way I try to keep myself honest with that sort of thing. But yeah, like you said, don't let this hobby become your stressor. There's smart ways of doing it. And RJ, that's a really good plan you've set up. I like that a lot. - I agree. I think it's a really good plan as well. And I think my two cents is I've definitely gotten caught in the just going crazy with trains. And I definitely got myself into a couple spots where I was like, "What am I doing here?" Like I mean, I was buying engines and then I might as well just had a shelf at home that said, "Here's where you put your trains that you'll never open and never run." Sadly, I had that situation and it kind of burns you out and it's just, it's not a very healthy way to look at the hobby. And slowly getting back into it again, I'm going to reframe the way I do things and just be like, "Okay, what am I going to, what do I want the most that I'm always going to run, always have fun with?" And obviously, you know, big boy, 40, 14 is obviously one of my, if not my favorite engine of all time. And I'm just going to take baby steps and just get a few of the things that I want to run because at the end of the day, even when I had a very large collection of engines, I was running like 5% of them because those were the ones that I like to run. And the other items were just like collector pieces. And I don't want to view the hobby as collector pieces. I want to run it, I want to look at it as, I want to get things that I like to run and then I want to actually run them and have fun with them. - That's a very, very good point, Matt. No, eight, oh, go ahead, RJ. - I was going to say Matt's collection going forward is just going to be the big boy, Chicago subways, and every masterpiece ever made. You did get my notes then, that's good. - Well, that's all we talk about on the shows. We only talk about subways, right? I mean, that's all we talk about on the show. - It's all right. - In order for me to come on, I thought I had to buy you a metric of 40. Like that's what I did. That's how I got on, so. - You did. - Yeah, you've already been-- - So I've lived it to be a host. Don't tell anyone, stop, man, you're exposing me. - And I want to get on the show. - And I want to get on the show. - Shake me in, boys, so. - I had to pay Mr. Krab's $100 an hour. Looking for something different? Need a gift for a fellow rail fan? Well, folks, look no further. NPL Customs is your source for all railroading decor. Handcrafted, made in the USA, and veteran owned. Their products made for rail fans, buy rail fans. I personally have a set of coasters from them that I absolutely love. Find them on Etsy at NPL Customs and use code MMPODCAST at checkout to save 10%. NPL Customs, quality since 2017. I mean, I will put myself out there, too, for the dumb initial scale purchases. I remember pre-ordering a locomotive from MTH, you know, about a year out, and then it came in. I got it out of the box. This is in the hobby shop I bought it from. Like, it comes in. I get it out of the box. And you guys know which engine this was, too, 'cause you were all, you all bore witness to it. I got it out of the box. I said, "Why did I pre-order this?" I literally put it up on the shelf and took a huge loss on it, like right there. I was like, "You know what? "I need to learn my lesson. "I need to teach myself. "Taking that loss, that L, "that's a W in the long run for how I do budgeting." So, sometimes you need to teach yourself a hard lesson when it comes to money, you know? - Going back to what you said real quick about like stores and their pre-order paying system is you guys had Ken Jr. on from TrainWorld a long time ago on this podcast. I think that might even been before the two, Jay's joined the podcast. But TrainWorld has this really cool system where you can buy e-gift cards online and you can add them to your account. So, you can buy those $100 gift cards every month and build up your store credit account on TrainWorld. And this way, when your pre-order arrives, they automatically deduct that money from your store credit. So, this way, like you're paying it off basically and you have this bank of money that TrainWorld just automatically deducts this way. It's a way of you budgeting and spacing out your payments but, you know, having it in a place where you can't touch it up. Having money where you can't touch it, like you said, like having that like, it's such an important thing to protect you from you because you being the hypothetical you, of course, listeners. It's a really good way of keeping yourself safe. So, that is one of the best things that you've taught me as well is that system which you just described. It's a good method. It's really good. - I want to own a house one day. I think all of us would like to. - That's the paradox. - Save enough money from buying trains to have a place to put the trains into at some point. - Exactly. - Think of it as full-scale scenery. One-to-one scale scenery by the rail king house but in full-scale. - If I buy enough o-scale boxes, I could build a house with it. - Mr. Box Manzi, you think Mr. Box Manzi would have the best box fort in existence, right? (laughing) - I think one of the things that just kind of round off this conversation, but I think we're all guilty of this. The biggest downfall for budgeting in terms of our hobby is when you go to a hobby shop, you can go to a new hobby shop on vacation or visiting with some friends. You want to walk out with something, ideally. And you always meander to the rolling stock area and you find a freight car and you go, what's the damage gonna be if I just buy one freight car? And then you buy another freight car in another. And then at some point you will have more freight cars than you could actually use. Guys who have a medium, small to medium-sized layout, you guys know what I'm talking about. You can only realistically run so many freight cars at a time and you're gonna use the same freight cars all the time. If you've got a big layout, a proper basement empire, then that's a different story. But for me with my six by 10, I can realistically run maybe one freight train two at a time, but ideally I'm being one freight one passenger. And once you've kind of built that freight train for yourself, all the other ones kind of just sitting boxes and those, even let's say used freight cars, for example, you're paying 30, 40 bucks, 60 to 80 if it's a new car, but those add up, the $20, if you buy a couple of $20 cars, it becomes 100 and then 100 comes 200 and then it goes up and up and up and up. And then if you add up how many cars you're spending on those freight cars throughout the year, you go, oh my God, I could have bought a whole, I could buy a steam locomotive with as much money. So it's one of those things where, just from my own buy, my habits and from things I've seen friends do, it's gotta be mindful of that thing. And one of the things I've done to kind of, and this is just for me personally, it's part of the reason why I weather everything. If I buy a new freight car, it's clean. I gotta weather the dang thing. Do I really love this garden up to weather the thing before I put it on my layout? Is this worth the effort? And it helps to curb the appetite for more rolling stock. I'd love to have a full PFE train, but I don't wanna weather 20 PFE cars. That sounds like a nightmare. And it helps to keep the money in check-and-tells. So when you do make that purchase, spending that time weathering that freight car, it makes it, you really like it a lot more, and you go, yeah, I am keeping this. I made the right decision. Because you are forced to literally look at every single nook and grind in that car to weather it. And you appreciate it and get your money's worth. At least that's why it works for me. I'm not saying everyone has to do that 'cause the collectors who don't like to weather, and there's the collectors, but for someone like me who enjoys that, it's a realistic air aspect of trains. It brings me joy and it keeps my budget in a place where I'm happy with it. - Weathering is really the great like, that's the final blow to like, I am keeping this piece. 'Cause it is, I mean, anybody who's weathered something and then tried to sell it knows, it can be hard to move a weathered piece. So that really keeps you more honest than almost anything when it comes to actually like purchasing something. If the price doesn't scare your way, then weathering something absolutely well. And Johnny, just off on a quick tangent here. I don't know why this popped into my head. It's 'cause whenever I'm around you, we always bring a blast of the giant stuff, but the script part in reference to the freight cars, when he's talking about the engines getting bigger, my mind transformed that into freight cars, but that was not enough even then. And then soon six freight cars grew to eight. Then eight became 10. Just it is dangerous. And no, that's also a good method for keeping yourself honest, money and weathering. 'Cause then weathering stuff costs money too. And then the Audi out and it just goes on and on and on. So yeah, no, it's really good. I like it. - Yeah, I think Matt are, I think for you, you taught me a pretty, just from watching how you handle that stuff, you taught me a pretty good tip when I came to keeping how to rotate your collection. Every couple months, if you are a person who effortlessly collects, look at your collection and go, do I need this? Do how often do I use this piece? Or is it just sitting there? And if you don't use it, you move it on to a different owner and you sell it and you take that funds, you take those funds and you buy something else that you would use. Rotating stock, rotating inventory, it helps to the train pay for the trains rather than constantly needing to spend even more on the trains when have a collection of use. - Absolutely. I kind of had, I kind of forced myself into that habit of if you're gonna buy something, then you sell something. And you know what, when your collection gets pretty large, I mean, you should be able to look at your collection and say, you know what, I can give this up. Like, I don't need this. I haven't opened this up in two years or I'm not really into this railroad anymore. It's not that hard. And it's not super difficult to find a buyer for it either. I mean, there's a being here in this industry and having a social presence, discord, Facebook. I really haven't had any problems like at least from an engine or a set standpoint. Rolling stock is a little bit more difficult to kind of sell and transaction without it being like very, you know, without doing it bulk. But when it comes to engines and stuff like, you know, I got into a point where it wasn't that hard for me to like just say, okay, yeah, I want this new, you know, this new engine coming out and, you know, it's coming out two months. All right, well, you know what, I'm gonna find an equivalent piece and just sell it and check that money and buy the new one. - Exactly, exactly. - That is an all around good, I think sort of wrap up to our whole interview and discussion here. Mr. RJ, did you want to discuss anything else before we begin wrapping things up here? I think that's a good piece to end on. Was there anything else you want to talk about? - No, I'm all good. This was very fun tonight. - Yeah, well, we're really happy, really happy to have you. I'm actually gonna throw on one last bit of advice. - Go for it. - Just in regards to the budgeting thing, just because I think it's a very important mentality to keep in mind as well. If you have the luxury to do this, this is the lesson that Sean from R. Discord actually brought up when we were hanging out at the club one time. Sean had recently purchased a very high-end brass caboose that was for the N&W. And the amount that he cost was quite a lot and I was a bit surprised and it's not something he would normally go for. And Sean is a person who wants his accuracy when it comes to his N&W stuff, especially with his co-hoppers. And he's willing to go a little bit more than his normal budget would allow for something like that. And I asked him, "Why would you buy something like that?" And if you're fortunate to do this, I think this is a very important for my piece, a bit of information to think about. His mentality was buy once, cry once, which was if you want something specific, save up for that item and buy the right one and be done with it. Because he could easily go, for example, for an N&W hopper. If he wanted just any N&W hopper, he could have gone out and he could have bought the MTH6 pack. But in the end, he would have that set and he wouldn't be happy with it because it's not what he wanted. So it's rather than me going and buying that set and then eventually having to sell and then rebuy it again and invest even more money into it. Why don't I just save the money and get the right thing the first time? It's not one, and I'm entitled everyone can embrace, but if you do have that luxury, it's good to think about in the long term. If you can afford to get the right thing from the get-go, sometimes it's better to wait and wait for that item to come up on the market because you'll be more satisfied with what you get and you don't have to rebuy a replacement for it later on. I know it's not everyone else has that luxury, but if you have that ability and you are a rivet counter, that may be something you want to keep in mind. - That is a great point, Johnny. However, the use of N&W to explain that, it does have a bit of a flaw because N&W modeling as a whole accurately is by once and then still need to cry five more times because all the other stuff that you want is super expensive and also hard to find because nobody wants to mass produce correct things for it. So yeah, no, rip to all N&W modelers who want a modicum of accuracy, including Sid, Sean, myself, and others. But no, the sentiment brewing is very much true. Spend a little bit of extra money, really think about what you want, and then you'll be happier, you will have something very unique and like, you know, again, with RJ, with his layout and everything or any of us. You're developing that very unique sort of voice and expression that you can bring where you're teaching. Others, 'cause I've always said it's so nice, like when we all get together, it's great just enjoying each other's passion for the things we love, even if you don't like model that or like study it, you can appreciate how everybody else enjoys something because you do the same thing with what you enjoy. So no, I think that's a great, great way of looking at that evolution of modeling, you know, starting out and then kind of our whole theme tonight of going into something bigger and better as you move up, always evolving, always changing. I think that's a great point to end on, guys. Yeah, for sure, and obviously, you know, all of us, we have our own passions and I just want to make sure, we said this multiple times on the show, but I do want to end it with this. Collect what makes you happy, that everybody has to be a scale modeler. We just do that because that's what we like. If you enjoy semi-scale railking or you like post or or you like MVC or Fund Dimensions or anything along those lines. Standard gauge. All of us are standard gauge, you know, tin plate, whatever you like. - H-O, - H-O, - N-scale, - N-scale, - N-scale, - British, - N-O. - Double O. - Exactly. - Lego, - Lego. - Lego. - Lego. - Lego, exactly, whatever is your niche, enjoy it. And if you develop, explore whatever path that, you know, you're collecting leads you go. You don't have to do what we do, but, you know, I think there's a lot of universal lessons out. It can be taught through our show today and the stuff that RJ's advised us on. So, you know, thank you RJ for joining us tonight. - Yes, indeed. Of course, it was an honor to be on. - Absolutely, yeah. This is, you know, we promised you before, like, you know, we're gonna have RJ on, we're gonna have RJ on and we finally had RJ on. So we appreciate, we appreciate your patience more than anything, but we always plan to have you on and the show being about you, obviously. And I know in the past, we've had you on and it was kind of, you know, we had you on for your knowledge, 'cause you do have a lot of knowledge for certain railroads, but it was nice to have you on, just to talk about you and your layout and, you know, your plans for the future. - Well, thanks, 'cause I just love talking about me and making sure everybody hears it. - Who doesn't, come on, about ourselves and how you. See, we like to build up the anticipation. We like to give you something to look forward to for a, you know, for months and a long time. So you've just had that. You've been able to anticipate this for so long and look at all the joy that that's brought you. So you're welcome. No, man, sit for real. We are super happy that you've been-- - My lifelong dream of being-- - Everything else is great for me from this point. - My life's going for you to be interviewed on the minute you're, yeah, all of my life dreams have been fulfilled now. - Oh, man. Mm-mm, good stuff. Well, you are a fantastic member of our community and we have an amazing community that you are a part of. All of you out there are listeners. And we'd like to take a moment to shout out some fantastic people who have boosted the server and help keep the lights on here at the miniature models podcast Discord server. Those folks are SDIV Tim, Tim's Trains, Blue Comet Fan 833, Maddy Sea Trains, Newt 1969, Commodore Ghost Ninja, The Rambles, Hard Work Pays Off, Dashing Dance Trains, Everyday Is Life, and SD7 Trains Fan, all those fantastic people of Boost Our Server. We appreciate you guys so much as we always say. It is you who inspires to keep the show going and we make this show for all of you guys. Guys, again, thank you so much for being here. Excellent show tonight. Our stop is coming up next. It's an interesting brown building, sort of a square-ish. It's got a strange logo on it, interesting. We'll have to go into that more at some point. But thank you all so much. Guys, if you would like to get more of us off the air, RJ, where can folks find you, sir? Go ahead and pitch your socials there. People can find me on Instagram at RJ.trains or on YouTube if you search RJ's trains. Fantastic. Thanks, sir. Mr. Johnny, where can folks find you? - You can find me on YouTube @automus. It's A-U-D-A-M-U-S where I will be occasionally posting videos. I keep saying I'm working on something and yet I get it done. So hopefully you'll see something on that space pretty soon, especially with all the meetups that are happening. But you can find me on Instagram and Facebook @automus_trains, where I'm a lot more active. I've been posting a lot of stuff from the bunker recently and some of my personal projects, such as the new FB-45 from Berwin, which I've upgraded and weathered. And also lots of shots of the scenery that we've been at the bunker. So if that interests you, check me out on there. Last but not least, you can find me on the miniature models podcast community discord, where I'm reading and responding to all of your posts and making a fool of myself and the voice chat. So come on down, it's lots of fun. How about you, Madar? - Yep, you can find me on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook at WC model railroad. And I'm also on the miniature models discord, lurking in the server room, but I do occasionally pop out of the server room and check on channels and try to help people, stir people in the direction and say hi to all the new people coming onto the server. - We lock him in the server room. Occasionally I let him out for something, but usually I just give him crackers in the door. So he's fine, he survives in there. - I'm like the guy from the IT crowd, if you ever seen the IT crowd. - Find our fantastic host who is not here tonight, Matt Z, you can find him at mattes.h hobbies on Instagram and Matt train lover. Oh God, what's the number combo, 99.43? You got that right? - Yes. - Yes, see, I've ingrained into my head now. You can find him on those platforms and you can find me, John S at Retro Makado on YouTube. Kind of a chaotic host in there sometimes, but I like to have fun with all you guys. So like I said, we appreciate all you. Thank you so much. This is a fantastic show tonight. And oh, might want to also look out for some stuff, exclusive content from RJ's layout on the miniature models podcast Instagram account. Got some neat photos on there. We should be posting soon. So RJ, thank you again so much for being on. It was really, really great having you with us here tonight. - It was a blast. Thank you so much for having me on. - Take care everybody. Take care. - Yup, thanks everybody. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - To really give a sense of scale and to Okay. (laughing) - Let's start them again. - Are you getting over there, Matt? - Are you using power tools, Matt? What is happening? - I think he's being attacked by aliens. - I think, I think demons have possessed Matt's computer. - I don't know what's going on there. - I don't know if you can hear us, Matt. Say them in the chat, if you can hear us. - Are you being attacked by mass cars? - Well, you run a professional setup here. - Oh yes, this is a professional show where we get paid to do this. (laughing) - I'm gonna mess this up real quick, just in case. - I don't think he knows what's happening. - I don't think so either. - I'm gonna move real quick. - Intermission time. Time for an intermission. (laughing) - Wouldn't be a show without a technical intermission. There's still glitching out, Matt. Let's silence him for a moment. There we go. - Yes. - Well, it's better than. - I don't know. It was weird. I was like, I was gonna join in in the conversation and I just unmuted. I hit the unmute button and the things went bananas. And I was like, what is going on? - Could you hear the noise that you were making? 'Cause it was something- - No, I could not. - Oh my God. That was something else. Sorry about that. I don't know what the fuck is going on. - It was like a, it was like a NASCAR full of Africanized bees. - Oh my word. (laughing) - I thought you, I thought Argy's like work printer next to him. Like came on. I'm like, oh Argy, I'm printing something. - It's all like, dot matrix with the spindles. (growling) - He's like, oh. - Yep. - Sorry. I just, all I can think about. (laughing) - You know how we have the joke around and it's like, oh, the branch line shirts, like after you've washed them and they just have them like, just static. What does your branch line shirt say? It's like Mad R's microphone. (laughing) (laughing) - Oh, that's, that's funny.
