Museum of Science and Industry SD 45 by CLW

@Carey Williams, Wow, you have brought back many fond memories of this truly wonderful layout, and I miss it. I love visiting The Museum of Science and Industry when in Chicago. Driving around Lake Shore blvd is always fun. Now the layout is HO scale, and although very nice, I miss the O Scale size trains. Your Sante Fe SD45 looks really good for the age and miles it been driven. Thanks for posting. Happy Railroading Everyone

Here’s my acquisition from the MSI auction.  I spent many weekends in the 70s and 80s camped out around the perimeter of that layout.

Cool! 👍👍

I followed several of the auction listings and was pleasantly/unpleasantly surprised by how much they went for -- pleasantly because there were so many people who valued the "story behind the item" in addition to the item itself, and unpleasantly because I couldn't afford to get any of the structures. The layout was impressive in size and scope and I wish I could have seen it in person. Like the California Museum of Science and Industry Layout, it's now part of history.

@AGHRMatt posted:

...Like the California Museum of Science and Industry Layout, it's now part of history.

...was fortunate enough to see THAT one in the summer of 1975; just before I moved North. Head end power was mostly F units... probably All Nation (?)

They used HO (and maybe some N) for "forced perspective"...wish I had taken pictures.

Mark (now) in Oregon

Good stuff Carey. I can pretty much verify I'm in O Scale due to the MOS&I and Lionel. Opinion but the post 1971 (Amtrak)  later example of the 1:48 layout was a pallid version of the 1950's and 60's era layout. I lived in Hyde Park for a couple of years in the sixties and those AT&SF passenger train models were the "eye candy," especially that custom built El Capitan.

The current HO layout is not bad, and though I appreciate the work that went into building and running it I sorely miss  Cronkhite's version. I did like the updated the layout with the EMD units like yours when I visited it again in 1980, but those beautiful passenger trains were sorely missed.

Thanks for posting this, lot's of good memories!