"T R A I N S !"

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I've had a major relapse! After some 20 years without any 'electric trains' except something going around the Christmas tree I was bitten by the bug more deeply than ever before when I retired.

A little history: I got my first electric train in 1943 or 1944 when my Dad convinced a sympathetic clerk at Macy's in New York that his little son just had to have an electric train for Christmas. (WW II; rationing; metal toys very scarce) My first train was a Marx 'O27' tinplate set with a chrome decorated '391' locomotive (click here) that my Dad set up on a piece of plywood with a squared circle (4 straights and 8 curves with a passing siding through the middle). It appeared magically each Christmas and then disappeared again. The Christmas tree stood on a tunnel/box in the center of the board that the passing siding ran through.

When I discovered the 'layout' existed all year I graduated to Lionel trains and as a teenager built an 8' x 8' "U" shaped platform layout for my "O27" stock. I have no idea how many hours I spent running trains and working on that layout but I remember building plaster-of-paris scenery; a 'square table' to shift engines from track to track (operated by the motor from my Erector set); some hand built turnouts (remote operated), hand laid track with "O" scale brass rail, a scratch built switch tower, etc. etc.. I soldered with an iron heated on the gas range in the basement. I also learned that one cannot 'embed' tinplate track in plaster-of-paris because the track corrodes almost instantly as the plaster hardens. Further, if one tries to form flange grooves by rolling one's engine on the rails before the plaster sets then the plaster that gets into the engine's workings will disable it permanently. (I still have the locomotive, a 2-4-2 Lionel.) The layout disappeared when I went to college but I still have my rolling stock and my "pride and joy" 4-6-4 Hudson locomotive in a display case I made recently.

After college and marriage I started with HO scale. At first I just assembled and detailed rolling stock kits and went back to building buildings from scratch. My first layout in the spare room in our second apartment was never finished enough to actually run a train on it. The room was needed as a spare bedroom. (The layout was disassembled.) Work and life just seemed to take over then and all my trains went into storage to be brought out at Christmas when my Lionels ran around the tree just like when I started.

My Godson gave me a set of 'N' scale trains some 25-30 years ago and I set up an eight sided loop with a passing siding to fit on a board designed to sit on top of one of our living room end tables. The board then served as a base for our little Christmas tree (we frequently decorated a large tree for the family room and a smaller one for the living room). Sometimes I had two Christmas trains and sometimes just one.

Well I'm retired now and I have time to go to a local auction from time to time. I bought some "G" scale trains including a Bachmann "Suwanee River Special" set on a whim at the auction about a year ago and added a couple of matching passenger coaches and a baggage car from eBay to complete the set. It is now on display in my basement on a lighted shelf I built.

One day my wife Martha Sue suggested that since I was beginning to spend a lot of time here in my office/den area I might want to use my 'trains' as a decor theme. GREAT IDEA!?

Suddenly, I remembered that I had an 'operating(?)' layout in the garage - my "N" scale loop! I was hooked!!. Since then I've bought all kinds of rolling stock, track, switches, etc., etc., etc.. I've designed a layout and started construction. The pages linked from the N scale button on the nav bar will take you to pages on this site that describe my progress as I construct my Carbon Valley & Dipole Railroad.