a ModelersLife

It's another first-time guest and this time it's a Norfolk Southern modeler with lots of talent and ambition, two qualities the crew here at the ole' AML Headquarters in downtown Busted Knuckle are desperately lacking. Baxter Barnes could be referred to as the new generation of model railroader armed with plenty of knowledge and the skill required to build a model railroad anyone could be proud of...

Based on this our latest cover photo, you may think were concentrating on the lovely little town of Ellicottville, New York, a village in Cattaraugus County about fifty miles south of Buffalo in the Allegheny mountains region. It's a pretty little town, right out of a Norman Rockwell painting and well known for its festivals, skiing and fall foliage. But as we close the year of 2025, we've also di...

Once again, it's time for our first annual "Christmas Quiz," which, based on the response from the listeners could also be called our last annual "Christmas Quiz." We gathered together a crack staff, the best of the best, from the AML Nation's, vast and sometimes suspect, talent pool. We even brought in a special mystery guest who lives just twenty miles from the picturesque town of Ellicottville,...

It's part two of a vision for the new world with John Doehring and Riley Triggs. In its continuing quest to continue the NMRA's standing as the largest and best organization in model railroading, we invited two of it loveliest, handsomest and finest volunteers to help us understand what's in store for the future of the NMRA. Rebranding is at the forefront and some of the goals include, appealing t...

The Sipping & Switching Society is a modular-railroading group associated with HO-scale railroading and our next guest has a lot of knowledge about the society and we decided he was the one to talk with. The Society is originally based in North Carolina but there also versions in the Ohio Valley and Cincinnati areas. With a well-defined "module standard," distinguishing it from other modular appro...

The National Model Railroad Association has been working on a new branding strategy and long-term vision for the future of model railroading, particularly through their Vision 2035 initiative and we here at the ole' ModelersLife world headquarters thought this topic required a more intense investigation and flew in the NMRA's Publications Manager Riley Triggs and Eastern Director John Doehring. Th...

The fun part of any hobby is meeting interesting folks with a variety of different talents and Wayman Humphrey is no different. An American artist known for his unique, vibrant approach to many different forms of art, blending geometric shapes, bold colors, and dynamic compositions, that explore both structure and spontaneity. While not as widely known in mainstream art circles as some of his cont...

It's a return visit to Mine Mount Models and our friend Ron Klaiss who's always sure to remind his name sounds like "nice." Things are really humming along and there's lots of new items on the website. Ron has been producing excellent craftsman structure kits for your railroad or diorama that create unique scenes on any layout for over seven years.  One of the best things about these kits from are...

It doesn't matter who they are or what they've done, or what they model, whether they have a big layout, a small layout, or no layout at all. First time guests are always interesting regardless of the topic or any of the other usual interests that we've come to expect from our fellow model railroaders. Scott Smith fills the bill, he's lived a very interesting life with an interesting vocation, as...

There's a new look on the horizon for the National Model Railroad Association, which was unveiled at Milwaukee's TrainFest. The new artwork is inspired by locomotives and rail cars symbolizing that the NMRA is on the move and propelling the hobby of model railroading forward into the future. We here at the old AML Nation wanted to find out as much as we could about this new logo and the plan going...

We often say that this hobby encompasses so many different aspects that there's always something for everybody to enjoy. Our next guest is all the way from New Mexico and is    excellent example someone who enjoys many different aspects of the hobby including operations, building steam pro throttles, rebuilding brass engines working with Arduino's and building his own CTC machines, as well as seve...

If your current day to day life is getting you down and you were hoping that ViewerMail would never make a comeback, we can promise you this day is not going to get any better, but we can assure that listening to this latest version of ViewerMail will surely make even the biggest problems seem small. After dealing with catastrophic climate change,   flooded roadbed, improper routing through the tr...

For those of you that don't know our very own Marcus Neubacher is the Director of Administration for the North Carolina Transportation Museum and every few years or so he'll get the chance to attend a convention for the Heritage Rail Alliance where the free exchange of information among members and working industry professionals is available. This year the convention was held in Durango Colorado a...

Old friends can be the best kind of friends, those folks you haven't talked to for several years and then strike up a conversation as if you'd seen them yesterday. That's what this podcast is about, catching up with our old friend Serge Lebel from Sept-Iles Quebec on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. We first met Serge several years ago when we discovered his O-Scale two rail layout known...

It's another trip to the "Cow Palace" keeping up to date with all the comings and goings at JL Innovative and who better to do it with than the man himself, Chris Costello. There's a great discussion about the new world of freight car manufacturing plus owning private rail cars and tearing up rail in beautiful downtown Salamanca, New York, all in one easy to open podcast. Enjoy!!

Located just 10 miles west of Horseshoe Curve the "Station Inn" is a unique bed-and-breakfast alongside the old Pennsylvania Railroad mainline. Built in 1866 only a dozen years after the completion of the "Curve," it became a sanctuary for weary travelers headed east or west and a summer retreat for many folks that lived in the Pittsburgh area. Run by Alex Lang and his wife Leah, it's become their...

N-Scale is alive and well living in North Carolina, not far from the Hickory Motor Speedway. Scott Teague's previous layout graced the pages of some of the finest model railroad publications out there, but that wasn't good enough for Scott and not long after that layout was dismantled and a new one started. Some people just have the knack for getting things done and Scott is certainly one of those...

There's plenty of action down at the old "Cow Palace" serving as the world headquarters of Costello Manufacturing and Chris Costello has stopped by to fill us in on all the excitement at the world center of model railroading just north of Bradford, Pennsylvania, and just east of Salamanca, New York. We spend some time talking about the machine that nobody talks about. Learned how 3-D printing is b...

This episode started out to check with Wallace Locomotive Works, but before we got a chance to do that, we lost a good friend and longtime supporter of the AML Nation. The one and only Ralph Renzetti a.k.a. the MudFather. Ralph was a regular on the Wednesday night chats, ready to lend a helping hand to anyone who might have questions about their modeling, especially when it came to paint and weath...

It's a return to the "Lone Star" state and a visit with locomotive engineer Emory Lehman. We haven't talked to Emory for a few years since and decided it was about time to check up on what Emory's been doing. Things have changed quite a bit with his new job at the BNSF in Temple, Texas, a model railroader living across the street and his friend Mike making major changes to his layout. We also disc...

It's part two of the Rob Bennett thirty-two-part trilogy as we try to figure out what makes this modeler tick. Is it the vast array of instructional videos he's created or his fabulous weathering or maybe it's just simply a love for the hobby that he's anxious to share with others. Rob tries to learn something everybody while not taking the hobby to seriously whilst learning the operations side of...

After years of travelling about the country working on transformers, not the plastic kind like you'd see in the movies such as "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" but actual transformers that do all sorts of cool electrical things. Our next guest finally settled in Erie, Pennsylvania because like his friend and fellow modeler Mike Hauk his love of shoveling snow seven months of the year bonds th...

There's nothing more fun than a visit down the road to Tillsonburg, Ontario with the sole purpose of a visit to the Otter Valley Railroad shop and visit with our friend Lorne James. You can always be sure that there will be lots of editing, lots of dizzying questions and answers with fun being had by all. Lorne stopped by the ModelersLife studios to bring us up to date on all the new cars that he'...

If you live in the Chicago area and a fan of railroading, you will no doubt be well aware of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad that's been jointly owned by several railroads over the years. With over 320 miles of track in and around Chicago it's kind of hard to avoid seeing this famous railroad that began in 1896. We here at the ole' AML world headquarters wanted to find out more and it seemed like...

The Pittsburgh, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Company was founded in 1897 by Andrew Carnegie to haul iron ore and other products from the port at Conneaut, Ohio on the Great Lakes to Carnegie Steel Company plants in Pittsburgh and the surrounding region. At the end of 1925 B&LE operated 228 miles of road on 631 miles of track; at the end of 1970, mileages were 220 and 489. Enter our next guest who...