[Gariver]

I would love to visit Northlandz in New Jersey! It's the world's largest model train exhibit, and it is amazing in every respect.

Here's some stats...
--8 miles of train tracks with 100 trains!
--Tour length: One mile to see everything.
--300 to 400 bridges!
--Longest bridge: 40 ft.
--Wood used equals that of 42 real houses!
--30 ft high mountain (6,000 ft in scale).
--Cost: Lots and lots of $$$

http://www.northlandz.com/

Looks like a fun place!

 

[fyrfytrhoges]

looks awesome, i wish i had my own house. i've had a set of lionel trains that my uncle gave me years ago and they've spent the better part of the last ten years in boxes in the basement. such a shame to waste such beautiful toys. hopefully when the time comes they won't be damaged from being stored in a basement.

 

[bozebuttons]

I went there about a year ago with my sons. The path you walk along wraps around sections of the layout and totals to be about 1 mile.The only thing is its mostly HO scale , some G guage.
I have a large collection of O scale trains,All started when I rebuilt a 1948 lionel set my mother bought for my father for their first anniversary, used to play with it when I was a kid.
My mom passed away from Cancer in 95 so this set is very special to me.
That set snowballed into halve my garage being filled with trains, and you thought this hobby was bad.
If you have the chance to go to Northlandz its worth the trip.

 

[Mr.PD]

That looks very nice. Is that the same place that was profiled on TV a couple years ago?

I love toy trains. Unfortunately I can't do them. I tried once when I had a large basement. But, working for the railroad and my obsessiveness with detail, worked together to drive me crazy. I couldn't get realistic curves in HO scale. I had track engineering books from the railroad and I wanted my curves and switches to match the engineering specs.

It would take a very large area to accomplish that. I noticed even this place has tighter curves than a real railroad would allow.

 

[Gariver]

Wealthy software developer, Bruce Williams Zaccagnino, created Northlandz. Model trains was a hobby that kept growing and growing. So he turned his hobby into a business.

It has appeared on TV a few times. I've seen it twice on TV, but I could not remember the name. So I did some Google.com searches, and I found it! One of these days, I will go there.

http://www.northlandz.com/talking.html