Warner Clark in front of his layout.

In posting about the layouts we visited during the National, I’ve saved the best for last. Warner Clark has built a Proto48 railroad that is a wonferful joy to see. Just like the other two basements, Warner also has a large basement, but he chose to only use a small portion of it for the railroad. Warner explained while we were there, “I wanted to finish the railroad in this lifetime.”

While the size of the railroad may be modest, the modeling is not modest at all, it’s first rate. There were no unfinished models displayed on the layout. Instead we saw finished scenes and finished models. Even with the new addition under construction, there was a greater level of finish to the modeling. Everything fit together to tell different stories.

Warner has also embraced some modern layout design concepts of modeling between the fencelines. Most of the railroad is on a shallow shelf around the walls. A new area of a town is being built on a second level over the backside of the railroad.

The next day we saw that O Scale Kings was using images of Warner’s layout to promote O Scale in their booth. Proto48 being used to promote O Scale.

I should point out that I went to the National with three other guys from the Eastern Pennsylvania. We talked about Warner’s layout a lot on the drive back and since returning. His layout was a wonderful example of what can be done with Proto48 and O Scale, but so often isn’t.

We have all said the San Juan trucks have enough detail to be a model by themselves, Warner did it.

A wider view of the wheel service area.

The details make the scene.

I’ve seen bigger NKP scenes, none better.

This is modeling between the fences on a shelf at its best.

The most photographed part of Warner’s layout for a reason

A longer view of the junction scene.

Beautiful track work!

A simple scene that captures the feel of two different railroads.

I’m not a fan of gates to enter a rialroad, but this one was nicely done.

Warner’s sense of story telling comes through in this scene with the police car.