The National Association of S Gaugers is a non-profit corporation that supports all "S" (1:64) modelers, manufacturers & vendors.
SCALE MODELING
standard-gauge
narrow-gauge
HI-RAIL MODELING
AMERICAN FLYER
We have a ton of content, so enjoy exploring this web site.
Below is a bit more detailed information about the photos shown in our home page's rotation. Click the photo to see the larger version used on the home page. To help keep this listing fresh, please consider sending the webmaster a photo of your layout, diorama, module, model, or an S-scale event.
Mike Swederska sent in this photo of a freight train passing by the Meramec bluffs on his "Meramec Valley Lines" layout. Mike's private-label railroad uses custom decals on his equipment. Mike also builds steam engines from scratch, some of which have been captured on video running on his layout, so be sure to check out his YouTube channel.
Bill Lane had the opportunity to visit Stan Stockrocki's "Hudson Central" layout in November 2024, and was able to take some photos. Shown in this photo, which appears in the inside cover of the February 2025 issue of Railroad Model Craftman magazine, are two Conrail engines pulling a freight train through the ex-NYC Breakneck Ridge tunnels (near Cold Spring, NY), heading north along the Hudson River (which is just out of view in the lower, left corner). The engines were both imported by Overland Models and manufactured by Ajin Precision in Korea in the early 1980s. They have been working hard on Stan's layout ever since. The lead unit is an SD40-2 and the second engine is a GP38-2, both custom-painted for Conrail. Stan has been working and operating this layout since the early 1980s, with two main modules of it built to the NASG's S-MOD standard, which he used to take to local shows to set up in club layouts. They are now a permanent part of the layout. As a bit of history, Stan created the original patterns for the S-Helper Service Amtrak F40PH (manufactured by American Models), and Train Stuff's 60-foot box cars.
Tom Lennon took this photo of the vendor hall at the 2024 Fall S Fest in St. Louis in late October, organized by the American Flyer S Gaugers of St. Louis. There are a multitude of late-Winter and Spring events coming up where you can see S in person, strike some deals, and spend time with area friends and acquaintances.
One of the features of this web site's "Layouts" section is that we show both currently-active layouts as well as layouts that have been dismantled. There is no reason why photos, and videos, of long-gone layouts cannot serve as inspiration to us, today. This photo is of Brooks Stover's first incarnation of his Buffalo Creek and Gauley layout, in a collection of photos he digitized, sent in, and we now show them on this web site. This layout used GarGraves flextrack, A.C. Gilbert turnouts, and ran three modified A.C. Gilbert 0-8-0 switchers, one of which is shown in this photo.
Scott Lister's Greenville & Northern #75, a GE 70-ton switcher, heads south in the town of Travelers Rest, South Carolina. Scott is building a large S-scale layout called the "Greenville and Northern" which represents the upstate South Carolina area in the 1970s. The layout's benchwork and shape is very unique; it allows for both continuous running, as well as lots of industrial switching, while still being able to walk into the layout.
Handsome CNR Mogul number 88 glides past the back of Ken's Garage on Jim Martin's Dover Branch layout. The engine, an E-10 class 2-6-0, is heading north from Lake Erie enroute to Hamilton, Ontario in the fall of 1953. That looks like a B&O hopper just behind the tender. Jim's beautiful autumn scenery is evident in this scene which includes wonderful details everywhere you look. Behind the shed on the right there are tools leaning against the wall and discarded lumber in a barrel. On the near side of the tracks the two derelict trucks are exquisite models in their own right. Notice the once-yellow wrecker is missing the driver's side door and the interior details are visible. The period-correct billboard in the background advertising travel by Greyhound bus is the perfect addition to the scene. In fact, it may be that bus travel has cut into the passenger business of the CNR's Dover Branch. This photo appears on the inside cover of the January 2025 issue of the Railroad Model Craftsman magazine as part of the NASG's promotional ad campaign.
We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and/or Hannukah and got to spend some good time with family and friends. Here's wishing everyone a fantastic 2025! Hopefully, it will include some modeling in S.
Bob Haladyna enjoyed running his beautiful Christmas-tree layout this year. It consists of three loops, with the inner loop having a siding at the North Pole passenger station. The layout is complete with candy-cane streets and lit-up snow-covered houses.
"Snow Fall At Dundon". It is early winter 1972 and the crew of Buffalo Creek & Gauley #20 are going about switching the B&O interchange at Dundon, WV. They brought a short string of hoppers down from the coal load-out facility at Majestic Mining's strip mine at Bonetown Gap. The 65-ton Whitcomb was nicknamed "Peanut" by the crews as it could only manage six loaded hoppers at a time. One lucky crewman is staying warm and dry in the road's spiffy yellow C-2 caboose, an ex-Pere Marquette unit. This scene was photographed by Brooks Stover on his 12' x 25' hi-rail layout depicting the BC&G as it was in the later years of its operations. The Whitcomb body was built from scratch by Brooks using styrene, and it rides on an American Models Baldwin chassis. It has a Tsunami DCC sound decoder installed. The C-2 caboose was made by centering the cupola on an American Models wood-sided caboose. The company store and other structures were scratchbuilt from mat board and bass wood. The figures are from Arttista and trains run on Fox Valley Models code 138 track. The late Don Heimburger ceased publishing his S Gaugian magazine in 2019 after 57 years of serving the S community. A version of this same scene was featured on the cover of the last issue, the November/December 2019 one. Brooks created this image by combining a photo of the modeled elements with an image of actual barren trees. The snow on the ground was created by over-exposing portions of the ground cover. The snow flakes were added with the paint feature of the photo editing software application Photoshop.
Over the period of the last four months of 2024, Paul Washburn has been busy building another one of his beautiful creations. This time around it is the Santa Maria Valley #100, a Baldwin 2-8-2. The Santa Maria Valley Railroad (SMV) is still in existence today. The railroad was started in 1911 as a shortline railroad to connect the Southern Pacific main line at Guadalupe, California to regional industries. Total trackage is about 14 miles. The Santa Maria Valley carries mostly freight, but it did offer passenger service for a few years during WWII to transport troops. The railroad actually went bankrupt in 1925, but was bought by Captain G. Allan Hancock, and it continued to be held by the Hancock estate until they sold it to Coast Belle Rail Corporation in 2006. Today it continues to offer similar freight service as it did over 100 years ago, except it interchanges with the Union Pacific (after the merger with the Southern Pacific). The railroad had four steam locomotives, namely #21, #100, #205, and #1000. Today it has two GE industrial switchers, a GP9, and a GP35. 2-8-2 #100, the subject of Paul's build, was built by Baldwin in 1926, bought by the SMV in 1942, and sold to White Mountain Scenic RR in 1962 and it is currently undergoing a full restoration at the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, a private railroad in Nevada, which intends to bring it back into full operation.
We want to reward you for scrolling all the way down to the bottom of this page by offering a featured video. This video will be replaced from time to time as S-scale modelers make new ones available, so scroll down here every so often! Contact the webmaster if you would like to nominate a video.
December 20, 2024: Mike Swederska shares a short video on just how slow he can run one of his S-scale steam locomotives, thanks to a good running mechanism and DCC. The model in the video was built by Mike.