A Westminster man, David Gahagen, gets that thrill every time he walks down into the basement.

Gahagen has a train layout that you have to see to believe.

"I had this vision of what I wanted it to look like down here" said Gahagen.

He proceeded to spend most of his time building what has become a nationally recognized model train display in his home.

One of the strengths of his layout is in the detail.

"A lot of the detail has to do with making it look realistic. And every time you look somewhere, you see something new," said Gahagen. 

There are farm animals, a broken down truck being repaired by an entire crew, holiday lighting, a rockslide, as well as ponds and streams just to name a few. There's even smoke coming from the industrial smokestack and a crew working on the tracks complete with a working jack-hammer.

Gahagen added, "There are animals and features in this thing that I don't even remember putting there."

His inspiration and dedication for this project come from the reaction of friends and family.

"And when they walk down here and turn the corner, most of the time their reactions include 'oh my God, are you kidding me?'"

His wife is very supportive and has offered some great ideas and tons of encouragement since he decided to build this layout.

The work never stops, and he is constantly adding detail and tweaking the project.

"I call it the never done railroad, and that's exactly what it is...it's never done!" He says that it's just one of those things that once you get started, it can almost get out of hand.

You can see plenty of model trains and layouts at the 31st Annual Holiday Toy Train Show in Aurora at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

There will be 300 tables of trains for sale and 15 operating layouts. There are plenty of hands-on opportunities for the kids and a few complete train sets will be given away.

Doors open Saturday Nov 29th at 10 a.m. and it continues to 5pm. On Sunday Nov. 30th, they accept visitors from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Admission is $5 per person, and $8 for a family. Scouts in uniform get in free and parking is free as well.