My Railroad set of pages is sorta out of date (from 2009) and disorganized.... so I put this placeholder here while I figure out what I'm going to do with them.
While I'm working on that, here are some of my own writings and notes on some of my Model and Real Railroad perspectives.
Many of these are still old, and need updating to the current state of affairs ... while leaving the existing, because history is part of the game.
I'm all of ...
I'm an HO modeller, from a very young age. I'll write about it soon. Both AC (Marklin HO) and DC. I model railroaded for many years, until I left for college at age 18. I would still model some, coming back for Christmas every year, and other visits... and that slowly stopped... but I would still by some new cars ... still unassembled as of 2021! .. when I visited the Hobby Store with my Dad.
After I bought my house in the mid 1990s, I wanted to setup some O-Scale trains to try them out. I short-changed myself by just buying an old Atlas Industrial Switcher; don't get me wrong, it is a great locomotive... and I think I have about 4 of them now. But I didn't spend the money on something Real like an F7, and a collection of real cars to work with.... and there was no sectional track available for temporary layouts... or I didn't want to spend the money on it.
So, I was sitting on trains and not playing with them.When I say "Playing with Trains" it means Model Railroading ... I started at an early age, with my Dad, and well the term is stuck in there!
In the mid 2000s I started buying some O-Scale Trains, little switch engines, some passenger cars (full length huge things) on discount, and some flex track. I wanted to build an O-Scale switching layout to put in my living room -- O-Scale takes a lot of space, and a "Time-saver" switch layout could be an interesting railroad, and chess puzzle all rolled into one.
I even thought, that if it worked out well, that perhaps I could make a lap of track around the living room, with foldable bridges at the various door ways, to allow me to "run trains" with a big layout... and not take up too much space.I still think that is a cool idea, to have trains in your life, instead of away in the train room... although I realized one problem was that the O-Scale radii are so large that I'd need to make the corners foldable as well.... and with a living room just big enough to hold a full size (9'x4-1/2') pool table, and playing area ... well doable.
One big problem with that was the flex track -- you need to have a dedicated area you can fasten the track to the table with.... so no playing trains on the carpet
Funny story about trains and carpet... Marklin M-Track has a solid roadbed, so you can build a layout on the carpet and it works great.One year, when I received my "SP Daylight" train from my father, I pulled down a bunch of sectional track from my attic layout, and make a oval on the floor of my Dad's office to run the Daylight on, so that everyone could see it run.
The thing is, normal HO Atlas sectional track ... is just rails on plastic ties ... sorta like the real thing. The problem though, is that the carpet fibers stick up through the ties and rails ... and ... wellll...
I had to unwind and cut off carpet fibers froma whole trainset of wheelsets .. for the carpet had would around the axles!!!!!
About 2018 I bought some more 2-rail O-Scale trains, I'd always wanted to try out O Scale, and it was amazing. I fixed my track problem by buying some Atlas O sectional track, so I could just put a layout on the living room floor (see below). I bought some "Road Engines" (F7/F9) instead of the industrial switchers I had bought before. I also procured some standard 40' freight cars and evan a Caboose!
Amazing prices, Amazingly Large, and an Amazing lack of derailments! The "heavy iron" really does hold the track better. I sent some videos to my Dad, and He really enjoyed them.My Living room was all torn apart from my purchase of a pool table, which needed all of the space.... but since the floor was empty, I could bring out the O-Trains and so some experimenting with them.
My Dad died unexpectedly in 2019, while still working on his Marklin Digital Layout(s). Everything he had built was torn apart and discarded.
Fortunately I have a few of my Dad's oldest trains, that I often played with, some that were his Pride and Joy ... which would be all of them (which I don't have)... some track, some few Marklin trains that I received as a child, as well as my trains, and my Transistor Throttle that was my first throttle.
Accidentally studying RailRoad History ... well I discovered that my Dad's selection of trains wasn't so random.Dad Really enjoyed the Railroad, real as well as model, and he passed that joy off to me at a young age.
- There were trains he had rode himself!
- Trains he remembered from his Child Hood
- Trains that he had Modelled as a Child, in 3-Rail Marklin I scale
- World record trains
- Famous passenger trains
- Impressive locomotives and Trains Dad saw on his trips to Europe
- Trains he had experience on other Continents -- Africa, Asia, Australia..
- Trains from his homeland, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic).
- Trains from his new Country, the USA.
- New Trains. Old Trains. Trains!
Every year, usually around Christmas when I take time off, I find time to Model Railroad a bit. Sometimes not much, but often. Usually something gets in the way ... but I do my best!
Covid in 2020 and 2021 has slowed down things, at the same time, a lot of stuff pops up on eBay and sometimes I can find something that I was looking for years ago. I'm working on re-organizing my basement so there is room for our trains, and room for track for them as well. Too many projects all at once ... at least we were locked away for months in 2020, which led to a lot of progress.
Hopefully I will have some track laid, maintenance performed on my old locomotives and cars, and more.
After Christmas in 2022, I managed to purchase some more trains.. and well then I had to reroof my house which took more time and $$ and effort than you would think, even with some great roofers and gutter people doing the big work. Oh, and i Have a dust collector (3phase) and 3phase converter now to run it and my 3 phase tools... and a old delta RAS -- I've been looking for one for years, and finally found one.