For a while now, I’ve become more and more interested in Amtrak, passenger operations, and casual continuous running. Because I’m still in the military, the best way for me to pursue this new angle on the hobby is N scale.
While the HO scale Farmrail switching layout continues along, I decided I wanted to build a small, continuous running N scale layout on a hollow core door. Somewhere I could run my Kato Pacific Surfliner and recreate some of the scenery we enjoyed taking the train to Anheim to take our kids to Disneyland.
I reached out to a noted professional across the pond, James Hilton, to help with the design since this is new territory for me.
You can read James’ own post on the design at his blog here:
https://paxton-road.blogspot.com/2026/07/commission-california-daydreams-table.html#more
His whole website is full of neat stuff, and I’ve spent hours perusing there. There’s so many gems on the artistry of the hobby and loads of ideas for small model railroads.
James’ design process was extremely helpful, I can’t recommend him enough.
I decided to keep things very freelanced, and I’m calling this layout “The Los Santos Subdivision” as a nod to a fictional version of Los Angeles that appears in the Grand Theft Auto video game universe. I’m not a gamer myself, but the aesthetics of the game art and covers were the sort of stylized version of California that I’m going for.
I’ve already constructed the benchwork and re-arranged the train room to accommodate the new layout. I’m excited to share updates on the progress soon!
Red Dirt and Rails 