The Great Model Train Race With 19 Trains

Stuck at home during the pandemic, I set up a racetrack for model trains to determine once and for all which of my 19 G-scale model trains are the fastest and which are the slowest. On a layout that goes inside and outside my house, each of my locomotives does a timed run through the course... captured by five different cameras, including one on top of the train.

It took a long time to test 19 different model trains, and even longer to edit the video from five cameras covering each run. It's one of my longest model train videos yet.

Featured in the video are G-scale trains from LGB, Piko, MTH, and Bachmann... including five based on the Santa Fe railroad.

To make it even more fun, I challenged myself before the race to predict the winners and losers based on everything I knew about the trains in my collection. Some of my predictions turned out to be horribly bad! Not only did I not realize which of my trains was the fastest of all, but I was also wrong about which one was the slowest.

Here's the full list of results of the competition:
Rank Jim Predicted Name or Description Road # Time
1 8 Toby 7 :37
2 1 Emily - :40
3 2 James 5 :40
4 6 Thomas 1 :46
5 7 Percy 6 :48
6 3 Amtrak 500 :50
7 14 Porter 3 :52
8 4 Santa Fe 868 :58
9 5 First Responders 911 :58
10 15 Coca Cola Train - :59
11 17 Winston - 1:03
12 9 Piko AT&SF 707 1:09
12 12 Rhaetian Railroad LD1 1:09
12 16 Santa Fe Super Chief 202 1:09
15 11 North Pole Express 25 1:11
16 10 White Pass Steam 52 1:12
16 13 Bachmann AT&SF 49 1:12
18 19 White Pass Diesel 107 1:18
19 18 Piko Clean Machine - 1:34

Let's just say that a few of my predictions ended up being right but quite a few were horribly wrong! In fact, the one thing we learned after all this is that I'm an idiot!

[swindonproductions]

The commentary sells it for me. He could of just stayed quiet and just showed the times but he was being interactive and interesting.

[eriktrainzfan]

23:15 Tobias: It was exhilarating! powerful! unstoppable!
"Tobias and the Half-Pariah" 2014

[edwardjenkins]

Porter is in the lead.

Thomas: No way a knockoff duplicate of Percy can be faster than me.

[thomaswalsh]

Toby: Now who's the fastest engine on Sodor, Gordon!
Gordon: (annoyed) I hate that tram now. He's not even electric.
Toby: Whoosh!
Edward: Shush Gordon, You’ve offended him!

[TrainBoi]

Your voice is so calming yet so engaging, I love it! Keep up the good work!

[steakandcake]

Ironically, Toby is one of the slowest engines in the Thomas & Friends series.

[lectro_folf]

Hey Jim, I heard that Bachmann will be releasing a Large Scale Diesel from the Thomas and Friends range, he’ll be nice in your collection

[elleryparsons]

Which is the strongest Engine out of All of them.

[cpgames]

toby is the fastest model, but the slowest engine in the show

[rockyfanatic]

Can you make a two track layout for a race on two engines against each other and some races will be Thomas vs Percy, James vs Emily, Toby vs Winston, coca cola vs Santa Fe steam engine and Amtrak vs first responders

[halfofacouch]

Train race: *involves 19 trains

Also going on: Covid-19 pandemic lockdown

Is this a coincidence?












I think not....

[Charliebosso]

My daddy loves Toby he was happy when I told him that Toby was the fastest 👍🏽🤪

[jasperrocks]

I love videos like this where it has Thomas engines and real engines.
“We got an A4 2-6-2 at 30 seconds, and Thomas at about 34

[jbucket]

Emily is number 12 in the series now, but Idk if they’d update her model

[rangerzickle]

All the Sodor engines are in the top five. And that just made me smile

[mylesgarcell]

when I went to the description I thought "north pole express", meant he was referring to the polar express

[FlyingDuckMan]

It's ironic that Toby was the fastest of all the engines in your collection, considering that in "Hasty Hannah", he told Hannah that he wasn't built for high speeds.

[strasburgrailfan]

Jim can you put Emily’s road number as 12 because in season 24 she is #12 and are you going to getting Bachmann’s Thomas & Friends “Diesel”

[amtrakp]

Back when you first start G scale trains

[JKJTransit]

All of the Thomas the Tank Engine trains are the top 5! CONGRATS!!