Wow! It was worth the wait.
It was a Canadian Pacific passenger train. It was headed by a 4-6-4 Hudson #2816 with a pair of tenders. It was followed by one the boxy diesels, then a pair back to back F "A" units and bunch of passenger cars.
2816 was first retired in the 1960's and sold. CP reacquired it in 1998.
It was refurbished and put into service in 2001 for excursions. That program was discontinued in 2012 and it was stored at CP's Headquarters since then.
CP and KC Southern merged in 2023 and 2816 was just put back into service in Spring of 2024.

 

I wonder what's fixing to come by. A bunch of people with cameras are waiting.
I thought maybe it was the Amtrak but it passed and they  are still there. I am hoping for something of a steaming nature. I can't see people gathering just to watch diesels.
The tower guy keeps shifting the camera toward the East and watching that way.

Here's a long shot view of the tracks.

If you want to watch live trains all day, this is a busy spot. This is a live feed from Tower 26 in Houston, Texas. I've been watching it for a couple of days.
It seems like at least a couple of trains an hour pass through.
Sometimes there is an operator in the tower who pans and zoom the camera. I saw him do that earlier when there was a train going through the "S' that is out of view camera now. Maybe it is done remotely. I don't know.
The view is looking West and slightly North.

It might be helpful if you said what loco you have in mind. Perhaps someone here has already done it. It is a diesel or steam?

I bought the E-Z Command Plus and went back to my standard E-Z Command. I didn't like the "infinite" throttle. I didn't care for the additional function stuff because I just like the simplicity. Others want more settings to play with. Once I  got it, I asked myself what else I wanted change and couldn't think of anything. I already have the separate little CV programmer that I use for the speed stuff.

I agree with Trainman on both issues.
I had a Christmas layout upon which I had used whit batting. I ended up with locos that wouldn't run because the fibers had built up around the axles. I spent hours with a pair of tweezers, pulling out fibers.
A flat surface is definitely needed to prevent derailing. It you don't want plywood, maybe something like a few thick sheets of foam board would work.

Check Ebay. People have similar sets for sale from $50 to over $200. That doesn't mean they are selling. They might have been listed for a long time.
I have been selling my collection of railroad books that have been up for a long with no buyers. I did sell a bunch of them already but it took months. I'm "sargeter" on Ebay.

What scale?  You can Google it or look on Bachmann's online store page.

It would  have to be a very small piece if you had to cut an Atlas one shorter than the Bachmann 3/4" piece.

One is just a little bit faster. It might take 4 or 5 laps to catch up to the other one after it pulls away.

You need to cut down the connector on the longer piece that you are trying to attach it to.

I have pair of identical Bachmann 4-4-0's that I consisted. I only used one address for both of them. One of them is slower than the other even though they are identical so "like" locos aren't always equal in speed.

Thanks for the link. That was a cool video. I had never seen a real water spout in operation up close nor a coal chute. I imagine that a lot of these procedures weren't always followed by doing them the safe way.

If you have HO track, then you need an HO gauge. You have an "N" scale gauge there.