By Roger Carp

A landmark three-rail display built with state-of-the-art electronics

Among the most important and memorable layouts ever presented in Classic Toy Trains magazine was the O gauge railroad built by singer-songwriter Neil Young with natural landscaping, amazing trains (including this Lionel no. 752W Union Pacific streamliner from the 1930s), and a wireless control system that was the precursor to Lionel TrainMaster Command Control.

Several factors made the O gauge layout designed and constructed by the great Canadian-American singer-songwriter Neil Young stand out right from the moment it was used as the cover story for the March 1993 issue of Classic Toy Trains magazine. They’re the reason this model railroad deserves to be lauded as a classic and remembered by everyone in the hobby long after it was dismantled.

To begin, Neil created his layout, which covered approximately 1,000 square feet on his ranch in northern California, to run through an assortment of natural landscapes. That’s right – the unforgettable three-rail display was built inside a big train barn by utilizing natural things found in the surrounding redwood forest. Huge redwood stumps became mountains. Running water filled lakes where scale sized fish lived for years. Moss from the forest floor outside the barn became fields of green. Wild pieces of wood from the forest floor were made to look like natural shapes of the landscape. The layout was watered to keep it green. Few O gauge modelers ever attempt such a venture, much less one on the scale of Neil’s.

Second, Neil, operated trains from every era of Lionel production amid the amazing natural scenery (ferns, boulders, and trees). You see, Neil had spent many years assembling an outstanding collection of prewar and postwar locomotives and freight and passenger cars from Lionel’s cataloged line. Best of all, he did not hesitate to run the vintage streamliners and more modern F3 diesels and EP-5 electrics. Those classic pieces weren’t destined to spend the rest of their lives sitting on shelves or occupying glass showcases. They were running!

Third, Neil used the layout to experiment with innovative methods of controlling his trains. The electronics guru who would soon join Lionel, his favorite toy train maker, as a part owner, was intent on figuring out how his physically challenged son might regulate the speed and direction and other features of the trains.

State-of-the-art electronics appealed to Neil as the answer to his son’s dilemma, and work proceeded on what was described as a paddle that, once touched, applied power to the track or, if touched again, cut off the power. The controller was wireless and controlled several operations, which Ben could repeat by touching his connected button, so Ben Young could control the trains from any spot around the layout - apply screeching brakes, honk horns, blow whistles, uncouple cars, trigger onboard crewsounds. Thus were Neil and his son developing and testing what eventually became TrainMaster Command Control. It was a controller with a small connection to plug in an independent button on Ben’s wheelchair tray, which mimicked anything the controller did. Neil would do something and then Ben’s button would do it - if he hit the button.

Regarding the track plan, as Jim Bunte pointed out in the original article in CTT, “when all the switches are set, it’s really one long loop.” To be specific, a train needed about 10 minutes to traverse the entire network of track. Pretty sweet!

Sad to say, Neil Young’s enormous and appealing three-rail display no longer exists except in photographs and the memories of individuals fortunate enough to have seen it and run trains on it. But among O gaugers with long memories, it will always rank among the greatest and most influential of toy train layouts ever built and presented in CTT.

Now, lucky for us, it is being rebuilt as an outside layout in Southern California, using many of the same redwood scenic pieces from the original layout, as well as countless new ones. This page will be updating us on the build’s progress, while “Three Rail World“ (opposite), will show videos of the original layout while it was working in top form.

This CTT original article has been updated by NYA