I had never seen video of John Allen's Gorre & Daphetid layout before.
Thanks for sharing. This is one of the most influential model railroads of all time. It's great to see it in action. The Irving street layout was torn down in 1953 when John Allen moved to a larger house with a basement where the third and most well known version of the G&D took shape. It's amazing how well he got those early HO steamers to run.
Wow, this is cool.... Does anyone know how large his layout was?
It filled his basement. Track plans are online. Google.
I watched about half that video and it was enough. I'm not denying that it was a masterpiece of all masterpieces, it just is not my kind of layout. It very much was the old spaghetti bowl track plan concept very popular about 40 or 50 years ago where you twisted as much track as you could into your space. I could never figure out his track plan and how operated but a lot of people did and he had lots of realistic concepts in place, unlike so many spaghetti bowl layouts where the trains zipped around in and out of tunnels and over trestles and came out of a tunnel you didn't expect it to, but always ended up at the same place. Maybe it was just the photography at the time, but the whole layout and room in general was too dark for me, a natural light fanatic who can't get enough light, not unlike a plant. Which probably comes from working 10 years in a windowless office.
Thanks Terry ! Enjoyed it.
Ken