Welcome to the NASG Web Site (2024)

Welcome to the National Association of S Gaugers' web site! The NASG is a non-profit organization that supports all 1:64, or S-scale, modelers, manufacturers, and vendors. We have a ton of content, so take your time exploring this web site.

The 2024 NASG Convention, to be held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is now officially open for registration! We invite you to join other S enthusiasts to the "S Event of the Year", where we will have rail- and non-rail tours, vendors bringing their S wares, informative clinics, and contest models to show. Get inspired and enthused about modeling and about S! Bring your spouse, your children, your grandchildren, and your display or contest models. Spend time with old friends and make new ones. Make a vacation out of it! Visit a beautiful part of our country. You can find all of the details on our web site here.

copyright © Hugh Sinn; used by permission.

Hugh Sinn built this water tank kit and recently displayed it at the Valley Forge Railroad Prototype Meet (RPM). The kit is by Lehigh Valley Models, a product line created by the late Frank Titman, but now owned by K&P Brick Co., and is available as kit #LVM21. The kit is modeled after the 50,000-gallon water tank found in Gordon, PA (northwest of Harrisburg, PA), serving the Reading railroad. The Lykens Valley web site has a photo showing the real tank.

copyright © Paul Washburn; used by permission.

Paul Washburn recently completed this scratch-built Santa Fe stock car. The model is mostly built up out of Evergreen styrene. The 7/8 corrugated ends are cast-resin. The side ladders are from a Pacific Car Shops kit, the AB brake set and air hoses came from Model Railroad Resource 3D Division, the Dalman Andrews trucks are a Custom Model Depot product, and the wheelsets are from NorthWest Short Line. Paul painted the model using Tru-Color Paint #TCP-251 "Santa Fe 1945+ Freight Car Brown". He applied decals from K4 Decals, using various Santa Fe decal sheets to put together what he needed for this car. Santa Fe converted 1,750 Bx-3 and Bx-6 40-foot box cars, which were built in the 1920s, into class Sk-2 stock cars during WWII, as the box cars were becoming too small, but they still had a useful life to them. If you enjoy scratchbuilding, then feast your eyes on a number of other projects Paul has completed over the years.

copyright © Bill Lane; used by permission.

Bill Lane recently completed his yellow "Year of the Cat" SD40-2. He stated that he must have spent about a hundred hours into getting the model as shown in the photo. These are very early brass models that usually didn't run well (remember, brass models were initially intended primarily for display purposes), had cold-solder joints, arrived unpainted, and these particular engines were gauged to the old NMRA wheel standard of the time. The second engine in this lash-up was Bill's first SD40-2 that he completed in 1990. You can see a video of this consist pulling a very long mixed-freight train in his YouTube video.

copyright © Craig Wright; used by permission.

Coal traffic is on the move, way out west, behind modern diesel power on Craig Wright's layout. The consist is led by BN #5734, a Lionel U33C which Craig modified by replacing the hi-rail wheels with scale ones. Additionally, the front and rear pilots were removed from the trucks, and then glued and screwed to the frame. The coupler opening was filled in to represent a more prototypical configuration, and Kadee S-scale couplers were added. The Lionel Legacy system's electronics was removed and replaced with a SoundTraxx Tsunami decoder. Next in line is a brass Rio Grande SD50 by Overland Models which Craig super-detailed following an article in the February/March 1998 issue of S/Sn3 Modeling Guide. This locomotive was Craig's first S-scale purchase. The third locomotive is a brass Overland Models SD40T-2 which was detailed per the Rio Grande standards. All engines are equipped with a Tsunami DCC with full sound and lights. In the photo, the consist crosses over a scratch-built representation of the Santa Fe's bridge at Larkspur, Colorado. Craig followed the prototype's use of multiple materials supporting the bridge; concrete piers, and steel and timber trestle pilings. Craig used modeler's license and moved the bridge farther west to his version of the appropriately-named Westwater, Utah. This photo appears on the inside cover of the April 2024 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine in the NASG promotional ad campaign. For information on how you, too, can have a photo of your layout appear in one of the NASG ads in RMC, see this page. You can view a few more photos of Craig's layout as well as some videos by going to his page on this web site.

copyright © Mike Marmer; used by permission.

This is a view across the center part of Mike Marmer's "D&K Railroad" layout. It's an island-style layout occupying the center of the room. It is flanked by display cases showing Mike's large collection of cars and engines. One of the iconic scenes on Mike's layout has to be the "S Helper Field" where the local baseball team, sponsored by the D&K Railroad, is facing off against a visiting team. As is common in scenes like this, the railroad tracks aren't far away. Mike's 9' x 13' layout has been "finished" for a number of years now and he gets to enjoy operating it. Mike models the Western Maryland and the Chesapeake & Ohio and runs his engines using the Lenz DCC system. You can see more photos, including a night scene of the baseball field on this page.

copyright © John Henning; used by permission.

John Henning shared this photo taken on his home layout. Of particular interest is the uniquely-decorated pair of hoppers in the foreground. The Gulf, Mobile & Ohio RS-3 in the back is an American Models locomotive. The photo was taken on John's modular layout. The layout was built by Doug Evans who took it to many local train shows. When Doug wanted to retire the layout, John bought it and set it up as his home layout.

copyright © Bob Hogan; used by permission.

Bob Hogan had been thinking of doing this project for several years and finally got around to it. He used an old issue of the Narrow Gauge And Short Line Gazette magazine which had drawings for these cars. In 1902 the Sierra Railway built its 19.3-mile Angles Camp branch from Jamestown north to Angles Camp, California. This line contained 4% grades, very sharp 28-degree curves, and a switchback. San Francisco's Holman & Company built two unique "shorty" 32-foot (end-sill-to-end-sill) passenger cars for service over this rugged line. Both the combine #5 and coach #6 have survived these many years and can still be seen at the Jamestown Railtown State Park headquarters (prototype photos can be seen on this page). Both cars have been used in many movies over the years and even on a few railfan trips. The combine #5 served as the Sierra's primary caboose during the early 1950s until the arrival of new Baldwin diesels and a newer used caboose #7. Because of their heavy use in Hollywood movies during the 1940s and 1950s, these cars were painted a variety of colors. Bob chose to use a Floquil "coach green" as this is how he saw them most often during the 1960s and 1970s. His guess is that they were painted the standard "Pullman" green when built. Bob built his models by creating a wooden base. The sides and ends are styrene. The roofs are resin from old V&T Shops Sn3 kits that he both widened and cut to length, which required a lot of sanding. The windows are by the former Grandt Line Products company, and the trucks are old brass Kemtron On3 ones, re-gauged for S. He used brass and white metal parts from his parts box to complete the detailing.

copyright © Bob Werre; used by permission.

The scene is based on three railroads sharing facilities in Omaha/Council Bluffs, Bob Werre's main yard. Member roads are the UP, MILW, and CNW which all served the Omaha area and exchanged traffic. Here, in the early morning, is an MILW L2 Heavy Mikado being readied for its east-bound run. Its consist will include five PFE reefers of citrus, six empty autorack cars, and fifteen cars of mixed loads. The locomotive was a custom-built model using S Scale Locomotive & Supply parts and a rolled boiler based on a Southern MS4 as Bob has an affinity for Elasco feedwater heaters. Over the years, the model has been modified twice to improve its running qualities. In the background is a plaster and wood freelanced roundhouse using wall castings from C C Crow for a D&RGW Sn3 house. Sixteen wall segments were spliced for the two main walls. Roundhouse doors, windows, and roof vents were laser-cut from the D&RGW kit. The turntable is also a much-modified vintage O-scale wooden kit from H&D models. The arch was a soft-metal kit, also O-scale. Bob Werre is a professional photographer, and so he elaborated on how he actually took this photograph. His overall theme was to create the mood around the roundhouse of a clear, warm evening. He chose to utilize LED lighting to supplement tiny lights already installed in the raised roof section. Two arrays of thin "pancake" lights were added as the roof was removed. He then added a larger overall LED array with a blue gel filter to give the twilight effect to the sky. That light was simply laid on top of the rolling stock and aimed up to the ceiling. Another small LED array off to one side was used to simulate yard lights around the turntable pit area. Lastly another smallish array in the form of a "free" light from Harbor Freight with a blue filter lit the smokebox front. The headlight, also an LED, was lit for the scene. With the setup complete, Bob then made five exposures stacked together with different focus distances. Adobe PhotoShop was then used to align and blend the five exposures into the final result shown here. This photo appears on the inside cover of the March 2024 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine in the NASG promotional ad campaign. For information on how you, too, can have a photo of your layout appear in one of the NASG ads in RMC, see this page. You can view a few more photos of Bob's layout as well as some of the layout's details on his page on this web site.

copyright © Alan Balma; used by permission.

This photo, taken near Aloquin, NY in the Fall of 1956 on Alan Balma's PRR Elmira Branch, was taken with an iPhone 15. The locomotive is an American Models GP9 and the cars are S-Helper Service products. The scenery materials are from Scenery Express and Woodland Scenics. The abandoned cabin was built from scratch by Alan. The bridge was constructed from an HO-scale Walthers kit. Alan used art resin to create the water. The foreground tree was made from Woodland Scenics armatures and Super Tree material, and the background trees are all Super Trees.