I came across this post quite by accident and it does have a flavor of sadness about it. For 45 years lay a mans dream of a sizable model railroad, only to be left idle, untouched and to gather dust. The table work seems to be made of a hardwood like oak and most likely valuable. Unless this home was located in a very dry area, I would say that the condition of all of the equipment is very questionable. There are some good scale pieces there but IMO they would take considerable work to restore. Value is undetermined until each piece is at least tested and thoroughly inspected.
What is especially sad is that no next of kin were there to take over the layout...no siblings, children, nephews??
A lot of work and loads of kit building went into that scale layout. Now someone will go disassemble this mans work. Much of it will be scrapped and it will be a memory lost forever like most layouts are.
