The Beginning

Like most folks with a career and family, I try to make time for my favorite hobby - model railroading. However, demands from the office, activities with the kids, and sometimes just not really motivated to head to the basement, I spend more time thinking about trains than running trains. So ... I thought I would create a blog to collect some of my ideas, plans, steps and missteps.

I got started in model railroading when I was probably 11 or 12 years old. My dad built an HO railroad for my that slid under my twin bed. Extremely clever design, unfortunately we did not know the difference between brass rail and nickel silver so everytime I pulled it out, I had to clean the track. Naturally, it spent more time under the bed than pulled out and running.

When I was in high school, I moved the layout to the basement and added a small yard. Now I could sort trains and have a purpose. I began to get interested in operations - although I did not really grasp much of what I was reading, I was still fascinated that there was more to model railroading than running trains. I was hooked once I read Bruce Chubb's How To Operate Your Model Railroad. (Side note: it was a picture of one of the control panels on his layout that convinced me I wanted to be an electical engineer ... all the way until my junior year of college when Penn State disabused me of that notion!)

That started my quest to build the perfect layout ....