Join us as we bring you stories from model railroaders just like you. We talk to enthusiasts across the hobby and learn about their beginnings, challenges, accomplishments and ultimately what excites and motivates them. Come hang out with us Around The Layout and be inspired to create your own model railroading story to share.
Ray Arnott -
Show Host & Creator
Although he loved trains from a young age, Ray got a relatively late start in the model railroading hobby. He grew up with a Tyco Chattanooga HO scale train set, but space restrictions in his childhood home kept the trains in a box for many years. After a few years of attempting to build a small layout, he joined a local club where he met his mentor, the late Michael DeBoise. Mike took Ray under his wing, introduced him to operations, helped connect him to a great group of modelers, and got him hooked on this fantastic hobby.
Together, Mike and Ray would create the Providence & Worcester and New England Central Railroad Interchange Model Railroad - a roughly 2’ x 18’ switching layout in the basement of Ray’s home. Ray belongs to the Tri-State Railroaders, an operating group that comprises of 8 operating layouts, including his, in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Inspired by the casual conversations at operating sessions, group functions and pandemic-era virtual gatherings, Ray has created “Around The Layout” to allow model railroaders of all levels to share their story.
Paul Cassar -
Executive Producer
Paul has been involved on both prototypical and model railroads for over
50 years. As a child he developed a passion for trains and commenced
with a HO layout during school years. As he entered adult life came
marriage, work in Railroad signaling and children. Later in life Paul
reentered model railroading with an N scale layout based on Missouri
Pacific.
About 8 years ago, with a house move, the N scale layout was dismantled
and sold to fund a move to HO scale and the build of the current layout,
the Riverbelt Line. The Riverbelt line is a proto-freelanced shelf layout loosely based on the MoPac, Norfolk and Western and the MKT interchanging in the Kansas area.
Paul is also active in social media and is the administrator for the
Facebook group HO Scale Shelf Modelers with over 13K members. He was the
4th to appear on the Around the layout podcast and continues to
contribute to the podcast behind the scenes.