Making trees – Ken Patterson style ... | September 2026 WHATS NEAT

on the September 2026 what's neat. >> We're going to talk about trees. A lot of different ways to make trees in the industry, in the hobby. We've done it for years and I'm going to show you a few ways today. The What's Neat Show is sponsored by Lombard Hobbies, your value hobby shop for over 40 years of modelers helping modelers. Big inventory, value pricing, fast shipping, and great service. And by Broadway Limited Imports, the cuttingedge leader in model trains. Check out their website at broadway-limited.com. And by Bachmann Trains, now that's the way to run a railroad. Check out their website at bachmantrains.com. And thank you for helping us support the best hobby in the world. >> This is What's Neat for September 2026. I'm your host, Ken Patterson, and this month we've got a really good show in that we're going to talk about lasers and layout design. We're going to talk about trees. A lot of different ways to make trees in the industry, in the hobby. We've done it for years, and I'm going to show you a few ways today. Also, I want to share with you some beautiful models that I am shooting presently right now. This first model I want to show you is from Broadway Limited Imports. This is the Railroad Safety Instruction Car. Chess Safety Center number one in HO scale. A very colorful passenger car with all of the windows blocked out completely. What an interesting model. This would look great simply sitting in a yard. So, what a great neat interesting addition to the Broadway Limited passenger car lineup. They've been coming out with a lot of neat stuff. Also, yesterday I shot this gorgeous little piece in Ncale. Let me pick this up off of the diarama. This is an SD70 ACE in Kansas City Southern. Just a beautiful little model. This thing's got Paragon 4 sound in it. Just amazing. Number 406. Look at the beautiful stripes. Look at the stars on the cab, the ribbon on it. What a nice little model for Nscale. Very amazingly put together model from Broadway Limited Imports. Okay, so I want to talk about trees. We're outside here and today I am going to show and share with you all the trees that were on the layout. They're all still sitting outside here in piles. I have not touched these since I probably brought them out in February. And right now we're the first uh we're around September 1st right now. Now, these trees are sage brush armatures. We would spend a fortune at the hobby shop, the Sweetwater Scenery Case, and buy these little armatures. Um, they would have nails in the bottom of them already for you. And I used these originally in 1988 when I built the Midwest Valley Modelers layout. I had never seen sage brush armatures until they start started to show up in these original uh woodland scenics ads about this this line of buildings and trees that they had come out with. Um so I was sold. I was sold on the fact that the bark looked good. Um the trees look good. As you can see from these trees, they don't look so good. I mean again the it wasn't the fire that damaged these trees. It was the smoke. Um and it it's just a mess right now. But these are all salvageable after you pull the flocking off of these things. Um, the armatures have not rotted in the period of time that they've been outside here. Here's some original plastic armatures I picked up at Walmart thinking we could make some ocale trees out of. I never got around to that project. Interestingly enough, the trees that did really well are these trees that Cresten Parker sent us. Um, scaltrees.com was the name of his company. These are wire armatures with some sort of furnace filter-l like material on the outside of them. Then they're flocked and he spray painted them with uh you know paint orange for the fall trees. Various shades of green and yellow for his green trees. And these trees have also been outside for what 7 8 months. Um in the rain, in the weather, and in the layout with all of the smoke on them, these trees actually survived. I was very impressed with that. So, here's what I want to talk about. Now, I've discussed the sage brush trees and a friend of mine, Ed Drestell, went out west and gave me a big tote of sage brush. I I've been storing it in this tote in the attic for years, you know. I mean, there's a G-scale tree, but this is the way it grows out west in its original form. And then what um that company would do that would sell these armatures, they would they would simply cut these out in the woods and and then have a cabinet in the hobby store and then sell them. So it was I remember at one time he told me he was doing $100,000 uh in sales. And this was probably 25 years ago. So here's some of the trees that were on that these weren't on the layout. These are ones that I just pull out in a minute to do a photo shoot. And they're also looking pretty tattered. They all really need to be remade. Remember the super trees when those come out? A lot of people use super trees. Mike Rose's layout is absolutely gorgeous and how he uses these super trees on his layout. Makes some just beautiful trees. Here's a pine tree that literally I bought it at the Home Depot when I had 250 of these on the garden railroad. And some of the armatures I put nails in and save them because they make great big background trees. This is about 75 ft tall. Wire armatures are my favorite way to make trees. It's the most realistic way to make trees. And I've been doing this for probably 20 years where I have made specific trees that were on my bluff and I've got those out here. The the thing with wire is you can model an exact tree. These few trees that you see in front of you right here were exact trees that were in the backyard down below in the bluff when I had my bluff model of this area where I live. I had this all in my layout. I've shown it to you a thousand times. But these trees were individually 110t tall right here. And in fact, uh you can't tell, but just above the bonfire pit there is the top of this tree right here that I modeled. So I know how tall it was. I measured it with lasers and everything else and then I bent it to its shape. What's interesting about trees that grow in the wild around here, they don't grow like the perfect little ball trees that you would go to the hobby store and buy and you know they're say yay tall and they look perfect on our layouts. No, this is the way they really grow. Why do they grow not a perfect ball? Well, because they're all so close together when they're growing in a group like this like they did in the backyard. You know, they've got the weird shapes as they're all reaching for the sunlight. So, that's something to think about when you model your trees on the layout. Model them scale. If you can fit them in there, I think it'll make for a dramatic result on your layout to model that way. Now, let's talk about pine trees. And I'm leading up to something here with regards to storage. Over the years, I've shown you various videos on how to make pine trees. Here was one that we used where we made a pine tree out of a furnace filter material. You can This is pretty beat up now, but the fact is they're beautiful. And I even tried putting pine needles on it by simply using um static grass and it kind of worked. Here's a tree again, a dowel rod using Caspia as the armature for the tree foliage. Here's another tall pond type pine. Again, a dowel rod sprayed with uh the Rustoleum uh this paint that kind of gives you a rock effect. It gives you gives me really good bark. And then I took the dowel rod, put a nail in it. I spun the dowel rod on a drill press. And then I found these plastic uh I might have gotten these at the hobby store. Um in the in the fl in the plant section. And these things I thought would make a great pine tree and it sort of did. Um I've got cactus here, too. Somebody printed us these 3D printed cactus that I've used in photo shoots in the past. Here's a Swaharro cactus that I made out of modeling clay. The kind of clay you bake in the oven. And then I put the lines and painted it green and put a pin in the bottom of it in case I need to do a cactus shoot. So, here are the pine trees that I used on the narrow gauge layout. Many different sizes. I've been using these in photo shoots for years. There's a lot of the Blackstone models that I shot uh back in 2013, 144, 15, I use these trees exclusively because they were fast. These trees are Grand Central Gems. They come in a package. You can get uh these are the large trees. They call them large pine trees, but there's even larger ones than this. They're like 9 in, 5 in, 4 in, various size trees. They look decent. This is the same brand of tree where they've covered it with paint. And I've used these in various photo shoots, too. And they look pretty convincing because, again, when you're doing a photo of a model, the trees in the background are subliminal. It's a group of trees. It's the subliminal that you don't stare at for a long period of time that sets the setting for the serving suggestion of the photo I'm trying to produce. So, those are the pine trees. Now, here's what I've come up with for storage. And I'm going to run a second camera on this. See these totes? I picked these up at the Home Depot. I really like these. HDX is the brand on these totes. But what makes these interesting to me, and this is how I want to end this segment of the video, is this roller cart that comes with them. So, I've got all the Grand Central Gems trees here. Why do I have so many? Because I've built a lot of diaramas in a pinch. You need to do a photo shoot. you've got them on hand. Same thing with the snow covered trees. I've got them in this tote right here. So, you stack this up. It's on wheels. I mean, this just makes sense. And I've got five totes total that I can stack up right here. So, I'll put sage brush in another tote, maybe two totes. um and just kind of try to save these trees until it comes time to start building the layout again. Um it's been it was December 13th when I had that fire. I don't know why I've got that date so memorized, but the fact is the plan is to actually have this project done by December this year. And I've come a long way. We're going to go inside and look at the inside of the studio because I'm ready to start laying out the layout inside. and I'm going to do multiple decks, I believe, with regards to a staging switchyard. So, that's where we're going to come in and talk about lasers on helping you lay out your grades and all the different things. We're going to get to that, but that was my segment on trees. That's kind of what I wanted to talk about today so far. And so, let's continue on with the rest of this September 2026. What's neat? for this segment of What's neat? You are looking at a fresh canvas, otherwise known as a white sheet of paper. This is the area where, as you'll recall, the uh river section of my layout traversed up the wall and around the corner into the switchyard. And all the books and all the shelves and everything has been cleared out now where I've got a great deal of space to work with here. Now, simply what I want to do, and I've went over this in a what's neat video previously, is I would like to run the layout up the middle of the room so that you can get to it from both sides. There was a time when the Midwest Valley modelers layout was down here and we only had half of it set up up the middle of the room. And I remember how wonderful it was to work on it. It was it was accessible. Plus, we gathered on both sides of it. It was really neat. So, I want to do that, but I also want to run a switchyard on the wall and I want to double deck it. So, about 16 in double shelves, essentially two 16-in shelves and then lay tracks on top, as many tracks as I can fit, but I need to come off of the main part of the layout. And so that's what I want to talk to you about tonight is in this L layout planning segment. How often is it we get to plan from scratch? The walls are clean, the floor is clean. The only thing I need to do is finish the ceiling up above me, but I'm not sure yet how to go about finishing it. Some of it is going to be drywalled. Other parts going to be drop ceiling for accessibility to wires and what have you and utilities. But I also would like to have a valance on this layout where the valance is running parallel to where the layout goes right above it. And until I know exactly where the layout is going to go, I don't know how to finish the ceiling. So that's why I'm to the point of where I am now. What I'm doing tonight is I've got various lasers set up and I'm going to kill the lights down here so you can see this where I can figure out the percentage of grade coming off of the main line of the layout to go to the upper and the lower switch yards that will be on the wall. Let me kill these lights down here so that you can see better what I'm trying to accomplish. And I'm running two cameras on this. So, I've got a few lasers set up on tripods down here. And they're all starting from this point of the switchard, the old switchyard, which I will relay and have double track main line coming off of that to this point where I will gradually make a curve going up to the grade. Now, I've set these lines up using, let me show you what I used. I used a level that I picked up around 1988 from the very first woodsmith store that ever opened up in St. Louis. Pardon the camera work. And this was something called a at the time they called it a smart level. And it was really a nice piece of equipment. It was mahogany. Just a beautiful piece of equipment. But when you turned it on, and I've got it set up right now for me, it gives you percentage of grade. And so when I did the narrow gauge part of the layout down here, I used this tool to create the 4% grade that I'm showing you right now on video. Um, which, you know, it took various, you know, you had to account for the weight of the train when you're going up a grade like that. Here's another tool. Milwaukee makes this little tool. You can pick these up at the hardware store. This one also measures percentage of grade. So, what a difference in uh 35 years that the device is so much smaller. And it does exactly the same thing that we wanted to do. Now, there's three laser lines on the wall here. The middle line represents where the level where the top of the rail is on this track all the way around the room. So, I've got the old part of the layout worked in far down. I'm going to zoom in. I've got the old part of the layout right there where the green laser is. And it's at the rail height. Okay. Also running along this wall. And I'm going to do this slow so you don't get sick. Follow the middle green line. That again is my 51 1/2 in rail height which connects to this point here. So, what I've got to do is I've got to come off of this area and go up and go down 6 in up and 6 in down, which will give me a clear run. Upper level yard, lower level yard. Figure about an inch and a half here uh for metal studs, which I'll use for my um bench work on top of the shelf brackets. That way, I'll have a clear span of about 11 in of access for the bottom yard to this top area coming out 16 in. That's enough room for access to light it. You just put in one of those little fancy $29 little lights that they sell now, those LED lights, and your yard is accessible and lit. Now, up the middle of the room, of course, is going to run the layout. And here's my plan. I have got a 48 in radius curve piece of plywood that I've been using for a long time around here to give me an idea of how to design things. And so I've got it set right now going up grade to the upper yard. So as you can see this incline of about 2.2% is what it is. Using these tools I measured it out about 2.2% is not very much at all. Plus, the whole train's not going to be on the grade at the same time. Only about 12 ft of the train would be on the grade. So, looking at that figure, the line going up where the plywood is, that's the upper level. The red laser going down would be the lower level against the wall. And the green laser in the middle, again, that's the mainline height of the layout all the way around the room. That section isn't going to be on the wall. I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to come off of this with the double track main line going adjacent to the two lines going up and down to the shelf. Okay. The main line, the double track main line is also going to sweep around here. Same type of a radius. Just sweep into this area. And then I'll have it bow out into the room. And I can come into this room, you know, right up to the middle of it and go as wide as we want, maybe 32 in wide. So, it'll bow into the room, allowing a great deal of walking space behind it. I could hang bookshelves from the rafters. And, you know, instead of having bookshelves on the bottom here where you got to kneel down and search for the book, how about if they're almost eye level all the way across a white set of bookshelves for holding the hard coverver books that I'm most interested in. So, that is the plan. And then at some point once, you know, I show up here with a truck full of 1x4s and I run this bench work, this Boeing bench work through the room here and come to the doorway. We're going to have to create some sort of a liftout section, which I'm not even thinking about at this point. I'm not even to the point of this part of finalizing and finishing this basement. There's still drywall work and cosmetic work to do. Now, let's discuss this lasers and how they work for me and how they will work for you. There's various types of lasers on the market. I started out many years ago and I'm going to show you a video clip here of the Sears Craftsman laser. I probably bought that around the year 2000. And I use that and I've in many what's neat videos showing you how, for example, I carved the foam here that was going down grade towards the river that's no longer in this area. And that laser served me well for years until it got dropped about 3 months ago and didn't work anymore. Since then, I went to Harbor Freight and I picked up this Bower laser which is creating the image the middle. In fact, it's shifting right now. Um, it's creating No, it's not. is creating the let me start over with this. This is from Bower. It's from Harbor Freight. The thing is dirt cheap. It's 69 bucks and it gives you a complete radius all the way around the top. So that means you could put up ceiling tile with this in your area. It'll give you the red line all the way across. Plus, it also gives you a cross line up and down. So when you're putting up your studs and it also has self-leveling in it, which is amazing. I am not using self-leveling right now for this laser. The red laser is set to my 2.5% or 2.2% grade. If I would turn on self-leveling, which I can do for you now, the laser's level and how it is on this tripod, which does me no good for creating a grade. There's another laser that I picked up and I want to talk about it. I don't see it in front of me right now. And it was from Bosch and I showed it on the podcast. I'll show you a clip of the laser cuz I don't know where I put it down here. It was a Bosch laser. It's got self-leveling all the time, which is absolutely useless if I want to create a percentage of grade on the layout. So, self-leveling isn't good all the time. It's got it it's it makes it wonderful. In the old days with the Craftsman, I would have to use a level to double check the work, and I'd even triple check it with a tape measure because I I knew once I had the laser line, it was super straight. I could trace it without any flaws, but I still wanted to make sure it was right from end to end of the room. In this situation where you've got a device that is completely self-leveling, it takes all the guesswork out of that. But in this instant, I don't want it to be self-leveling. So, I'm going to lock it back up again so that it simply is giving me my percentage of grade angle in red going downhill. One thing to note is I'm doing this in the corner, right? The grade is going to be in the corner. So, every laser is also got an up and down vertical line, and I've got those lined up to the center corner of the room to make sure this is accurate the way it's lined up. So, price point 69 bucks. Uh, the Bosch laser that I showed you B-roll of a few minutes ago, uh, that was a price point of 169 for that unit. And I don't know where I put it down here. The other unit that I've got here, this is a Milwaukee unit. This is in their M12 battery line. It also has uh self-leveling on it, but right now I've got it locked because this is the laser that is giving me my uphill grade right now. If I would turn this into self-leveling and unlock it again, it's going to level out to the height of where it's at on the tripod, which is exactly what I don't. So, I'm going to bring it back into lock mode. And it now it's giving me my angle that I want. Some lasers will flash if they're self-leveling and you turn them at an angle like that. Um because they don't like that. So the Milwaukee model here, this is a price point of about $4.29. You can find it on sale once in a while. It gives you a cross up and down line, gives you a paral line and both at the same time. The third unit that we're using for this demonstration is the one that's giving me self-leveling all the way around the room. This is another Milwaukee model. This is the also in the M12 battery line. This one's got again the radius around the top. It's also got the side to side level on both ways. So, by hitting the mode button on this unit, I can make the laser now showing me level to the floor here and up the wall. Great for doing stud work. Or we can make this other laser on the side light up. So, which by doing this, this is what you would do if you're laying out walls, for example. The top laser, of course, is for laying out the drop ceiling that you might want to put into your uh place. So, for this demonstration, I'm simply using it to give me my self-leveling mainline. Price point on this unit is about $6.49. The other Milwaukee was $4.49. The Bower, which is the one that does everything that we need, is simply 69 bucks. I mean, how do you go wrong with that? So, this is where I'm at with regards to designing this area. It would only take a matter of days to put up a couple of shelf brackets on the wall, slap some plywood and metal studs across there, and get ready to start laying track. That part's easy. um coming up with the exact area of where the train's going to run in the room. That's going to be the next part that I want to figure out. So until then, that's going to be this segment for what's neat. Next up, the gentleman from Bachmann Industries are going to share with us what's new in the lineup for 2026 going into 27. A lot of neat new products to check out. So with that we end this segment of what's neat. All right, for this segment of What's Neat, I've got Matt Stern and Tyler Haney from Bachmann Industries all the way from beautiful Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to tell us about all the new announcements that were just recently made about what was it I guess two weeks ago almost at the NMRA National. There's a lot of neat stuff that we're coming out with this year. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. We got a uh fully loaded brochure. It's uh twice as large as it was last year because we've got, you know, so many great announcements coming in all the scales that we make and we're going to uh go through them all and uh talk about, you know, what's what's coming out in the next couple years. >> Really cool, Matt. So, what what are you going to start with? >> Well, right here on the cover, uh which Ken will throw up on the screen as well. >> Yes, I will. >> You've got the uh uh Amtrak Cascades Aerot Train. Um, so it's a consist of seaman's vent, not seam venture, seaman's arrow cars, which are kind of like the uh um progression from the venture cars. >> Okay. >> Designed for slightly longer hall journeys than the venture cars were. And uh they're going to be starting in service with Android Cascades this fall. And uh we are be bringing out the full consists um for a chos. >> Yeah. iterates on the uh the venture cars uh with some changes to the uh the design of the doors and the steps uh in the loading area. Uh there's an additional set of doors on the CAD cars and we're going to be reflecting all of those changes. So it's going to be uh new tooling uh that's accurate to the AOC cars and the changes that they've made. Uh there's going to be six cars in the Cascades Consist and we're going to offer all of them. We have the uh business car, the cafe car, three coaches, and the cab car uh with TCS WOW sound for TCC operated light and sound on the cab. >> No, that's fabulous. It's just like that beautiful yellow train that I've got here. I keep talking about it every time you guys you were here. You were just here a couple weeks ago when I was talking about this. This is the cab car I've got from the VIA train. >> Yeah. This took I got the train and then 18 months later it took to come out with this because of all the technology that you guys had put into it. The lighting, the sound effects, all of it is cool. And when you're running it, I can't tell if it's the front or the back, which is really neat. >> Yeah, we've uh now we've gotten the the vehicle. Uh we're well kind of shortened up that uh that 18month wait time. So our our goal is to have all the the complete const all at once. Uh and that's also going to be accompanied by the matching locomotive. And this is the latest version of the uh >> Seaman's charger platform. This is the ALC 42E. Uh not quite sure exactly what the E stands for, but basically what sets it apart electric perhaps. Uh what sets it apart from the ALC42 uh the existing model is that it has the cap capability to uh couple up and run off a uh an additional power source either a uh APV car with the panagramraph to draw from the overhead wires in the northeast corridor or a battery car for use in the Empire service. Uh so we're bringing it to HO scale along with the arrow cars. So you can see here we have the Amtrak Cascades paint scheme and we also have uh phase 7 because these locomotives will be also used uh in the northeast uh where the aero cars will be used as well. Uh this is all the great features that the uh all the charger locomotives have had with wow sound audio assist keep alive uh and it has the new details that are specific to the ELC 42E with the uh the plug on the back to connect to the battery card uh some modifications to the uh side vent panels uh and the rear light configuration as well. >> Yes. You know, I'm kind of jealous because you guys have got all the fast passenger train, you know, daily activity. We don't have that kind of commuter service here. We've got Metro Link and it it's not this cool. I'm just saying. >> But you do have the SC44 chargers and Amtrak Midwest service. >> Yeah, we do have that. Yep. I get to hear we you stood out here in the cliff and watched it go by. That was fun. I'm sorry. I just I can't stop interjecting the fact that this is so exciting. This is the most exciting part of the show because these are the things I like to see running on this layout. >> Yeah, we're uh we love to uh you know, we love to keep you uh you happy, you know, running the you know, the running the trains that you want to see. >> That's actually our primary goal is to make Ken happy. >> Yeah. >> Oh my god, this is awesome. I always knew it. >> Anyway, what's next? Yeah, in all serious seriousness though, uh we don't just like to keep Ken happy. We like to offer something for every kind of modeler. And we're going to go all the way back from the modern era into the 19th century. We've got >> our uh our new 19th century 460s uh which are coming out soon in Nscale. We're going to be bringing them to HO as well, >> but not quite the same model. >> Yes. Uh there will be some uh differences as far as the the prototype we selected, but it'll be along the same lines. You've got this 19th century uh design. The uh the tapered boiler sloping up, the wood cab uh you have the option of a wood burner or a coal burner. Uh all these road names here will have wow sound as well uh which audio assist and keep alive. We've got four road names here. We've got the uh the Central Pacific, the Baltimore, Ohio, That Thatcher, Perkins, the Pennsylvania, and uh I think a lot of people are very excited about this last one, the uh the Sierra Railway number three, uh which is, you know, sometimes known as the movie Queen. It's appeared in countless uh movies and TV shows. Uh Back to the Future Part Three, Petticoat Junction, among some of the most famous. That's awesome. I think this up on the screen digitally as well, so we don't necessarily need to hold it up. No, I'm telling you what, this is exciting because now at the RPM meet when you were guys were Matt, you were at the RPM show on camera and you showed that Ncale locomotive. The last podcast we did over in the shop a couple weeks ago, I was talking about that thing. I still can't get out of my head that you were able to put a motor that small in the boiler. I mean, that dude, that's crazy. >> That's about as small boiler as could fit a motor, right? >> Yeah, exactly. Well, anyway, hats off to you for that. That's cool. >> Yeah. Um, no, the uh Sierra number three is probably one of the most um requested paint schemes for this locomotive. So, we're very happy to be able to deliver that and and you know, make it a little bit different to the NCL release. Um, and uh yeah, this one also a little different from the NCL one is going to come with wow sound. uh so about TCS Wild Sound um with the uh keep capacitor and all the great features you've experienced on our other Wild Sound locomotives. >> Very cool. >> We have uh a new uh diesel locomotive announcement as well um which is the uh it's kind of more of a return than a new announcement, but it's going to be with a little bit of a twist from the previous run. Um that's the Wtech ES44 AC. >> Okay. uh to date uh has only appeared as part of our Norfolk Southern heritage series. Um but we will be bringing it back with um a few differences. Tyler, you want to talk about that a little bit? >> Yeah. So, uh as Matt mentioned, we originally uh introduced the ES44 AC as part of the Norfolk Southern uh heritage unit series. Uh and at the time we designed it uh specifically to the units that Northolk Southern was operating uh with their you know specific uh options like the uh the headlight above the uh the windshield and a couple of other differences. >> Okay. You could you could probably throw up some photos of the uh North Southern ones right about now. >> You bet. So, we uh decided it was time to bring it back and we wanted to expand uh the amount of road names we're offering uh because it's the most prolific locomotive uh in North America to date. So, we're introducing some new paint schemes and to go along with it, we're adding some new uh detail configurations to our model. So, we have the uh the nose down headlight which is standard uh across operators besides North Southern. Uh we have the option of having these locomotives with or without the rear dish lights. Uh we have different options for the placement of the door in the nose of the locomotive uh and with or without uh the window uh in that door. We have uh some different options for dynamic brake blower vents uh being uh opened or blocked off. And so with all these options, we've got uh two brand new road names. We have CSX. We have the standard uh how to borrow moves oxarate scheme. Uh we have two commemorative units. The uh the CSX 911 spirit of our first responders, the 3194 spirit of law enforcement. Uh we're also introducing uh Canadian National and the standard Norfolk Southern black and white thoroughbred scheme. >> Very cool. opportunities for railroads around mostly the the eastern side of America, but uh a good selection >> and this will be a uh another release that we're uh bringing uh TCS Wow Sound 2. Uh we previously did it as a sound value decoder. So, we're bringing in the uh the latest decoder technology uh with all those TCS features uh and CD quality audio, all the different horns and bells and options to select through, >> which is good because I believe the uh at least one of the memory units has a different horn to the standard GO horn on it. So, you can probably find that in >> Well, you guys know this stuff, man. You guys absolutely know the details. >> Thank you. We uh they try. You try it. All right. What else we got here? Yeah. So, we've got some passenger cars to get into. Uh, and speaking of, uh, Amtrak Midwest, uh, in your neck of the woods, Ken. Uh, we're completing the, uh, Seaman's Venture Cars for Amtrak Midwest. Uh, >> no. Completing for now. >> For now. Yes. Uh, but we're, uh, introducing the cafe cars, which have been in service for a while now. Uh >> okay. >> So this is the uh you know we previously brought out uh the uh the single car coaches uh the married pair of coach class and business class cars and now we've got the cafe cars uh which have the cafe car specific interior of course with the service counters and table seating. Uh they have the uh car specific exterior details as well. Uh the LED interiors, working marker lights that can be turned on and off. uh the optional uh close coupling uh draw bars and European style couplers are included. Uh so yes uh we know that uh I say you know complete for now uh we do want to uh this is not a official commitment but we know that the cab cars are going to be coming to Amtrak Midwest soon as well. Uh, and we're going to look into doing those as well. But we do have the the cafe card ready to go. Uh, so you can complete uh your consist and give uh give the people on those Midwest regional trains somewhere to grab a snack. >> Okay, let's back up. Are you telling me the train that's going to go from Chicago to St. Louis is going to have one of these cars, these cab things on the back of it? >> Similar to that. Yeah, it's gonna have a >> kid like >> looks a little bit more like the SC44 you'll see up front. >> Wow, that'll be interesting. >> General idea. >> Okay, good job. I like it when things change. I love change. This is good. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> And we've also got a uh an addition to our American Freedom Train series. Okay. The set came out in time to celebrate America's 250th. Um that's shortly followed by the uh first uh was it first four um uh exhibit cars and uh Tyler, you've got some samples here of the next three that we're bringing out. Yes, we do. Uh so we've got uh the next three freedom train exhibit cars right here. Uh they have the lighted display windows uh the flat uh picture panel on the one side >> and the uh shadow box on the other. Uh so these are cars 105, 106, 107 and each car represented uh two decades of American history with the graphics on the outside. Uh so first up we have 18 uh 56 to 1866 and 1866 to 1876. So a very eventful period uh where you've got the uh the Civil War uh and the period immediately before and after and you've got the building of the transcontinental railroad. So, you can actually see right here where my finger is pointing to, we've got good old honest baby. And on the other side, we have uh Grant and the uh the golden spike ceremony represented in the artwork here. And flipping over to the other side, we have some uh mannequins representing uh northern and southern uh sides of the conflict. Uh the soldiers on both sides. Uh and we have uh some early uh railroad images there as well. Then we have uh car 106 as well representing 187686 1886 to96. It's kind of interesting uh how they uh chose to represent uh this area on this car where you've got a lot of uh technology. You've got a bic an early bicycle. You've got some hand tools and you have over here on the other side Statue of Liberty which was uh completed in 1886. You've got President Cleveland Uh we couldn't do this all uh without uh the help of uh guy named Todd Shann who runs the American Freedom Train website uh at freedomrain.org. Wow. He's kind of the uh definitive historian of the American Freedom Train. He's got >> whole site with the history of every car on the train, every city that visited. >> And he also happened to uh recreate the graphics on each of these cars uh and help us out uh with making sure they were completely accurate. >> Very cool. Yeah. So, here's the last car uh in this run of Freedom Train Cars. This is 1896, 1906, and 1906, 1916. >> Wow. >> Sweet have those out next year. I say you can continue building your Freedom Train Consist. >> Yeah. >> Very cool. I think the uh the next announcement is probably one of my favorites and and uh part of it is just because in reality it's it's such a uh prolific car design and that is the NSC uh 60 ft uh 9in high cube box car. >> Okay. >> Um again in HO scale uh this car um is part of a series that was u uh commissioned by TTX u for their railbox series. Um it was um one of what was it? Three manufacturers that produced this style of car. >> Yeah. They uh they needed such a large fleet of uh box cars that they went to multiple builders who uh each of their variations of this design. Uh they specified the uh the 60 foot 9 in uh interior length and the double plug doors uh to make this a very uh you know high-capacity uh box cart. And uh NSC up in Canada was one of the builders selected and they uh they brought them out for I think about 1015 years they were building these cars and they're still very common to find today. >> Uh >> so appliances I guess washers dryers. >> Yeah. Was it appliances dry goods is a big one. Yeah. Mhm. So, we've got four paint schemes uh in this announcement uh representing uh you know, this is a very common design that's found on pretty much all the major railroads operating today. Uh we've got TTX of course uh with their modern logo. Uh we have Canadian Pacific uh CSX and Union Pacific uh which had a very similar uh design that we've adopted for the National Scale Car Body. That one scheme is a little hypothetical, but it's uh it's close. >> Yeah. And I'll I'll tell you something, Ken. Uh the illustration that we have here in the brochure is a mockup, but this car is in uh tooling design right now of our factory. And we can't wait to show off once we get a sample of it because I think people are going to be blown away by the uh the quality here. Uh >> I love it when you talk like that because I know you're designing this stuff. I know how good you are. This is fun to watch you shine. I love this. Go ahead. Keep do it because this is like you guys have always evolved. We've seen it happen through the 90s and the 2000s with the steam engines and all of the things that changed. The Schnobble car in the background was one of those models that just jumped out at people. Um, and now here you go re creating a common modern box car with the accuracy that is to be expected these days. Now it seems like >> Yeah, definitely. We've uh we really wanted to uh raise the bar, you know, across our entire product line if anything new were coming out. Uh this box car specifically, uh we're going to have uh separate uh pieces for the door hardware, so the the hinges and security locks. We're going to have separate ladders, uh handrails, and the the complete brake system underneath the car. Uh, so this is uh not your uh not your father's uh 50 foot uh plug door box car. This is a uh box car for a new generation. >> I love it. Good job. >> Most detailed cars yet. And um also worth noting is it is the only um NSC 60 foot 9 in high cube available or to be available in HO scale um in in current circulation. So, so do you secretly have a room in your house where you have all these Ken Patterson pictures shot outdoors of your cars >> and you just look at them and you're like, "Yeah, it's like my It's like a trophy really. It's an accomplishment." >> Yeah. I mean, I don't have that exactly, but when I uh first joined in Bachmann and uh I posted on uh my social media at the time to let people, you know, what I was going to be doing and what Bachmann is all about, I did have uh one of your 030 photos uh to show, you know, this is what Bachmann does. Uh these are what these Spectra models look like. >> Yes, good job. >> Yeah, thank you. We have a uh just a couple more things for Joe Scale. uh some quick ones, some accessories, but uh you know, we uh like to keep uh you know, offering some variety in those. Everybody needs uh some good accessories to finish their layout. We've got some uh new easy track ger bridges. Uh we've got BNSF representing the modern and New York Central representing the classic. I think we're up to 10 of those uh decorated uh ger bridges now. >> Are they Are they Are they 50 foot? Um, probably a little bit longer. >> Oh, it's the same length as a piece of easy track then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. About nine inch straight. Yeah. It's a 9 in piece of straight track. Uh, comes out to about I think 50 uh scale feet. >> No, that's cool. That's cool. I didn't know you were doing that. That's neat. >> Yeah, they're very they're very attractive looking. Uh, also got some new uh Secapes figures coming out. Okay. Uh, >> and these are pretty cool because we've uh >> we've got some uh 20th century people, some pedestrians, just sort of people you'd see >> walking down the street in 1950s uh town or city. Uh, and then we've got some commuters that are uh representing some more modern eras as well. Uh, we've got some I think this is a very cool one. Uh, the the modern commuters. If you uh bring that up on the screen and if you look closely, you'll see you've got people with some very modern rolling suitcases uh checking their smartphones. Uh something that hasn't really been offered in the uh in the US uh for figures lately. >> Right. But that's what everybody's doing. I see it all the time when I leave the basement. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's uh it's all about modern is all about representing reality. So, if you're doing a modern era, you have to have these people on their phones. >> Right. >> Can I just jump up and down? I can't wait. Okay. I know you're gonna say it. There's an e unit coming out in Gcale, guys. There's it's going to be about yay long. Okay. I said that. >> Yeah. Well, we we'll get to that. >> Yeah. >> Uh but we'll try we'll try and I know you know it's a lot of stuff to cover here, so we'll try we'll try and pick up the pace a little bit. But uh >> just kind of closing out HO scale um actually going to HO narrow gauge for H130 which represents approximately two foot gauge narrow gauge um runs on Ncale track. We've got four additions for our Welsh narrow gauge range. Uh these cars are uh based on a carus railway um gravity wagon. So this is something I don't know if you've heard of Ken. These cars would go they'd be pulled by a locomotive in one direction, right? >> And then uh they'd actually use gravity and send them back down the rail line if once they were uh loaded and uh loaded or unloaded. I guess it would be unloaded. Either way, um they they were sent downgrade by gravity alone with a brakeman sitting on each car manning the uh the handbrake. >> Yeah. Not that the models can do that or should do that because uh you probably they probably fly off your way out. But uh that's the cars they represent. We've got cars railway. I mean their corporate scheme. We've got their mail wagon scheme, talent railway um which is a very well-known heritage railway in Wales. They have a number of these preserved. We've got one collecting dead preserve paint scheme. And then we've also got Great Western Railway which uh operated the car railway for a number of years before it closure. They did bring some of the wagons into the great custom scheme under its ownership. >> Fair. >> So, covers all the years for that wagon. It'll be a great addition to your uh if you following our existing H130 Welch navigation range. Um, a little bit of Thomas as well. Should we talk about that? >> I think we should. Uh, yeah, because uh we've got some uh some stuff that's uh made some of the the longtime Thomas Friends fans very happy. in particular. Uh we're doing three locomotives. Uh two of them uh we have the uh we've already had Thomas and Percy in our line. Uh and we've had the Thomas and Friends line going for almost 25 years now. Uh and we decided it was time uh you know Thomas and Percy, you know, they were the first locomotives we came out with and we thought it was time to uh give them a little bit of an upgrade. So, they're going to be getting uh redesigned body shells, uh new faces to uh make them up to the same standards as the uh Thompson Friends characters that we have today. >> Okay. >> Uh they're also going to have front couplers and a couple of other uh new features. Uh and for a brand new locomotive, we have the uh the infamous uh still a fan favorite Diesel 10 with the uh Pinchy the Claw on the roof. >> Right. >> We're still in the developing phase of how that claw is exactly going to work. It's not going to be motorized, but it'll probably have uh at least be able to be pivoted by hand. Uh have some play value to it. >> I'm so surprised at how many YouTube videos are out there about Thomas. I mean, it's a People really >> It's a whole subset of the hobby itself. >> Correct. It really is. You wouldn't think that, but to see it is amazing. >> Yes, >> it really is. And there's some very talented modelers in that in that field as well. >> Yes. >> Yeah. We also have a uh a couple new pieces of rolling stock to go along with the Thomas range. We're always looking to grow that. We've got three new uh stone widens here with a removable load. We've got a uh chocolate syrup tanker for something uh you know you wouldn't see uh in the real world, but anything's possible in the island of already. You know, uh for the HO narrow gauge range, we've got some uh V dump wagons here uh which will have a uh a moving bin. Uh, these actually will work pretty well with both your Thomas and Friends narrow gauge and with your regular narrow gauge as well as well. >> Those are nice models. Like a diecast uh chassis or frame on them. They're relatively heavy. Um, is that the same like what I used to have here? >> You're probably thinking of our 30 or >> Yeah, I am thinking of the OM30s. These are >> H30. So, they're still in the very early design phase. We haven't completely uh figured out exactly what a year 11's going to be yet. So >> this would that does that run on ncale track? Does it run on ncale track? >> It does. Yeah. >> So this would work with those small locomotives that you've been doing that I think there's something to that because you could build a layout into a layout using one of those small little locomotives. >> Oh yeah, they're they're great for small layouts as well. I mean you can make an HCL layout in half the space you need for actual standard HO. >> Right. Right. I shot those outside one time and I treated them with like as if I parked Ford F-150s and 250s around these to illustrate their size and I put your pictures in the images to illustrate because when you when they first came out, it's got to be what nine or eight years ago now. Um, it was a really cool idea. Do you remember when Atlas did it back in 1975? They came out with the little HO scale train that would run on Ncale track with the dump cars just like what you showed and people would incorporate that into the AHM mine where they'd have the little engine come into the mine to dump the load into the ho stale cars. I mean, we're going back decades and decades. We're going back to the 1900s for heaven's sakes. But the fact is it's a valuable modeling experience when you've got that for a layout. >> Yeah, definitely. Uh even though these are uh these are models that are based on uh you know prototypes from you know from bridge you know narrow gauge um definitely uh >> you know there's definitely potential there for people to uh to kick batch and modify them to fit in on you know any kind of railroad like that. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. We don't that's been done with a lot of our Thomas narrow gauge already. We also have some Ncale announcements. Um we're bringing back the Alco 260 ski locomotive. >> Okay, that's >> a fan favorite. Probably one of the the best looking just in terms of locomotive, just a satisfying locomotive appearance. I love those three big driving wheels on each side. And um it's just a very I don't know, it's very proportionate locomotive. Um we're doing Lacawana, Pennsylvania Railroad, Southern Railway, and Union Pacific. Uh, these will be DCC ready and uh um as an upgrade from the prep last time we did them, they will now also have an X18 plug in them. >> Cool. Nice. >> Yeah, we also have a uh new locomotive for brand new for for Ncale. We've got the EMD GP9. Uh we've done the GP7 previously uh but it's been out of line some for some time and we didn't get around to doing the GP9 until now. Uh we figured it was uh time to kind of bring that first generation road switcher back into our line. Uh and these are also going to have soundtracks economy which uh is new for this type of model. >> Wow. >> So we have uh you know it's going to be a uh economy decoder uh with all of their great features. Uh we've got some four great paint schemes. Nice color variety I got to say in these. We got the Canadian National in their uh their early green and yellow scheme. Got the Norfolk and Western with the uh the Tuskin uh paint scheme known as the Redbird uh to match their passenger cards. Those boys were using passenger service. Uh we got the Pennsylvania and we've got the Santa Fe blue and yellow freight on it. >> Okay. >> The actually be the same road number that's on board that's currently sitting on on display on Horve. Here's one. This This one here is going to be uh another one that might appeal to your neck of the woods. >> Yeah. So, our uh Missouri Pacific uh design uh short body bay window transfer caboose which we uh introduced an HO scale a couple years back. We're bringing it to Mscale as well. >> Very good. Yes. be completely new from the wheels up. Uh again, based on the Missouri Pacific design, which was copied by uh several other uh railroads in the late 1970s. Uh many railroads use them uh in transfer and switching service. Uh but the Missouri Pacific did use them on their main line runs as well. Uh so they uh they can be found in all kinds of trains uh even up to the present day. We've got Missouri Pacific, uh CSX, Pacific and Union Pacific representative. >> And it's also worth noting that the CSX scheme on this one is going to be a little different to the one we offered on the HO1. This is going to be um closer to the the locomotive design for the Bright Future team. >> Okay. >> On this particular road, >> just a few Thomas announcements for NScale. Um, we're following uh Bordon's Express Coaches with uh the red express coaches and uh we're also bringing some uh new uh coal wagons to the line. Um it's the the same um wagons that we the plank wagons that we already have in the line, but we're adding uh a new tool colo colo to them. And we're also adding the uh very popular funfair vans um which have been both in HO and are shortly to arrive in uh uh large scale. Cool. >> They've been uh immensely popular in Asia for their uh colors and they're kind of a classic heritage theme for the series as well like that. And uh just rounding up Thomas announcements in Ncale. We also bring out Tim Shed's um first stop. >> That's a nice building. Um I built one of those for you guys at HR scale and that came out really nice. It was in the Thomas line, I think, but it looked really good with your 440 sitting in front of it. >> Yeah. And in fact, we do have that in our standard HO line now as well for non Thomas mockers. >> Okay. Very cool. >> With a more appropriate approachable coloring to it. >> Yeah. Our uh our TMA sheds for Ncale is very similar to the HS scale version. It is a uh snap together kit uh which goes together and stays together without requiring any glue. Uh so very easy uh to assemble. Uh has five doors uh five stalls with doors that automatically open and close. Uh it's designed to fit around our easy track turntaber. >> Very cool. >> Then in OM30 scale, uh we are doing a couple of narrow gauge scale announcements. Um we're bringing back the the Davenport 040 gas mechanical. >> That's a neat little model. >> Four new paint schemes for that. Um Bethlehem Steel in their uh plant service orange and black scheme. uh Sumpter Valley Railway uh painted unlettered black with orange boarding stripes which is essentially a Rio Grand inspired scheme and then the painted unlettered red and black as well. And these are going to come with GCC sound on board and metal gears as well. So a nice upgrade from the previous runs. >> Nice. >> Uh we also have a uh um a Woodside box car uh returning to the line. This one's got uh again new paintings we haven't done before. So, we've got Rio Grand uh we got the East Broad top, Florence and Creek, which is got the very attractive gold belt line graphic on it and uh painted on lettered gray example as well, which will, you know, if you don't want to have it in gray, it will be a great primary color for whatever color you want to make it. And now here's the one that you've been waiting for, Ken. >> Yes. >> This talk about that. >> This called a mantle piece. This >> Yeah, it it deserves to be on a mantle for sure. Uh but you know it also looks great on the garden railroad. Uh but anyway, yeah, the EMD8 is our uh next uh 1 to 29 scale. Uh diesel locomotive. Uh this is another uh former Aristocrat product that we're going to be reintroducing uh bringing up to current standards. Uh it has the uh ball bearing uh free axle uh power trucks, two power trucks, uh LED lighting, knuckle couplers. Uh and for uh we know that uh new large scale modelers uh all like to do operations a little bit differently. So it's DC powered out of the box, but has the nonproprietary plug-andplay board uh so you can install the decoder of your choice uh or do a uh RC uh power and battery installation. And we're going to have a total of five paint schemes uh for this release with two road members each. Uh representing uh you know some of the uh you know when you think of those great you know beautiful streamliners from the 1950s I think we've got a lot of the big ones covered. We've got Burlington, Pennsylvania, Santa Fe War Bonnet, Union Pacific, Baltimore Ohio all in this release. Uh >> very cool. And of course, many of these locomotives did end up uh moving into freight service uh as passenger service uh whittleled down into the 1950s. So they'll look equally at home uh with both freight and passenger cars. >> Really excited for those. Um also in uh large scale, we're u bringing a uh bookend car for your train, which is the u offset caboose. Uh this car is going to be offered in a number of paint schemes as well. We've got um Rio Grand, Union Pacific, Pennsylvania Railroad. Remind myself here what else we have. Uh Santa Fe and letter. >> Very cool. Very cool. >> These are these are going to come with all the bells and whistles as well. >> Not actual bells and whistles. >> Oh yeah. But, uh, you know, as far as, you know, having, uh, lighting on the lanterns and in the interior, fully detailed interior, uh, metal handrails, uh, it's a, uh, real top of the line caboose. Uh, it's perfect, uh, to finish off your train behind your EA and your GB40 or even your D9. >> No, absolutely. And another mantle piece for sure. Especially around the Christmas tree, you know, around And that's coming. Here it comes. It's going to be here. Here it comes. Yeah. >> So, rock and roll. So, that kind of lines it out for everything that you talked about the at the NMR show. >> Yeah. We do have uh one more quick uh you know kind of uh footnote on that. We do have uh a new large scale Thompson announcement uh which would be Henrietta and Hannah and Hannah uh Toby's coach and her sister uh which has been a another one that's been requested for a long time. >> Okay. >> Aside from that, that is all of our uh midyear announcements. Something for everybody I think. Thanks to everybody who's uh sat through and uh listened to all this. >> No, it was great. The photo thing you had a few months back giving away that streamline Hudson. That was a neat idea. You guys are great together. The viewers love it. I'm sure they're working in the shop listening in the background and taking notes and writing down what it is. The Mopac caboose, for example, in Nscale. I didn't see that coming. And that's a nice model. All of them are nice. >> Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. We're uh glad you enjoyed it. Glad people are excited and it's always a pleasure to uh be on the show and talk trades. Absolutely. >> Rock and roll, guys. So, just like that, that ends this uh September What's Neat, guys. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Perfect. All of the products seen on this episode of What's Neat are available from Lombard Hobbies in Lombard, Illinois, or order online at lombardhobby.com. Broadway Limited Imports, the cutting edge leader in model trains. Check out their website at broadway-limited.com. Bachmann Trains. Now that's the way to run a railroad. Check out their website at bachmantrains.com.