Layout Tours

Explore local layouts

By attending St. Louis RPM, you gain viewing access to several of the greatest layouts in the area. Come see some of St. Louis’s best layouts for yourself!

Some of layouts that have been part of the STL RPM Layout Tour in the past are Eric Brooman’s Utah Belt, Brad Joseph’s Union Pacific Wyoming Division, Pete Smith’s Loon Lake Railway and Navigation Company, and John Russell’s Rock Island.

More About Layout Tours

As part of STL RPM, we usually have two to three home layouts open for tours on the Friday evening of the meet. These layouts are located near each other in an area of the St. Louis environs. We provide the descriptions and locations of the layouts as a handout once you are inside the RPM. The layouts on this tour have often been published in national magazines and are well respected locally. We also rotate the tour to a different area of St. Louis each year to minimize repetition and drive times. Scroll down to learn more about this year's lineup.

2022 Home Layout Tours

Eastern Missouri Division of the Chicago Burlington & Quincy by Hank K.

This HO scale layout is set in the 1970’s era of Eastern Missouri features point to point operations with a 425 foot mainline run. Featured areas include north St. Louis warehouse district and a large Portland Cement facility with 12 switching operations using Digitrax throttles with a crew of 10 people. The scenery is approximately 60% complete and features painted backdrops on the drywall and foam core board building flats.

New York, Pennsylvania and Pacific Railroad by Tom G.

This freelance HO scale layout is set in the 1930’s to 1960’s and is a folded dogbone design with continuous grades between levels with 200 feet of mainline run and additional branch line trackage of 100 feet. The scenery is approximately 75% complete on the upper deck and the lower level is still under construction at this time. The town names are taken from the neighborhood names of New York City and the backdrops feature photo prints attached to the walls. Operations are accomplished with NCE radio throttles to serve a coal mine and a large yard also crossing several rivers along the route.