My parent's house was a small half-block from the Milwaukee Road railroad tracks in Wausau, WI. Today the house remains, the rail remains, and train traffic continues ..... but the Road is long gone. It is now Wisconsin Central trackage. They have ripped up the passing sidings, the turntable, the roundhouse, some of the yard, and the MOW facilities in the last 2 years or so (2000-2002). It is baren compared to once it what was. The famous Wausau station of the CMStP&P remains next to the tracks still.
While it is empty now, it lives on in my mind as it used to be. EMD F-units and GPs chanting away, the burbling Alco RS's. Two and three car passenger trains, the aroma of diesel and the distinctive odor of combustion generated steam. The musical chime of multi-chime air horns. Regular passenger service ... walk up and buy tickets if you wanted.
The Wisconsin Central pushes a different kind of traffic through. 7200 to 10800 HP of SD-45s grunting away. The earth shakes a bit as they start to accelerate their freight south after winding their way through the downtown. The strident blare of the modern air horns isn't as pleasant as that which once was, it is just a noise, not a sound to enjoy.
Growing up next to the railroad left a strong impression on me. Riding the train to Madison -- local to New Lisbon, and then waiting for the Afternoon Hiawatha to glide in behind a triumvirate or quartet of Es and Fs. A pleasant ride scampering between the Super Dome to see forward, and the Skytop Lounge to see what was. Finally to watching the red tail-light on the Skytop Lounge pull off and fade into the distance after de-training in Milwaukee. I even rode the rails all the way to Washington DC with my Father, once, to see a Presidential Inauguration. That was they last of the days of the train which I miss.
When I lived at home I model-railroaded in HO scale. I slowly accumulated my own collection of Milwaukee Road rolling stock and locomotives, which I treasured. It was the next best thing to riding the train. 4x8 layouts and cobbled together track in our tower. Spending the little money I earned on yet another Athearn freight car that I could assemble and add to my train. When I left for college my trains remained behind and I slowly started to forget the pleasure I got from them.
I kept my hand in railroading during school and afterwards. I attend the yearly model railroad show in Madison every February, and admired the equipment I saw. The scale O-Scale layout always impressed me with the size of the locomotives and rolling stock. It sounded like a real train, clickity-clack across the track. Slack run-in and run-out mean something with o-scale, unlike HO. I thought a lot but did nothing. I participated in some Mailing lists on Signalling, and worked on developing a software driven ABSP Block signalling system. But no trains ... I tried once or twice but the rooms were too small and I didn't push hard enough.
As I update this in 2001, in the last few years I've sorta fallen out of love with railroading. I think the elements and the technology involved are fascinating. I just don't seem to have the time to work on my own model railroad, though, and I think I've come to realize that. When I visit a train show I still appreciate all the workmanship that went into it, but I realize that I don't have the drive and incentive to build my own any more. I still think about a "garden" railway a bit, or even of live steam. I think I have more interest in laying track, building rolling stock and operating it, than I do in building scenery. The thought of running a scale rotary plow through my trackwork in winter time amuses the heck out of me. I don't know what will happen, but I am still an enthusiast, even if I am not actively building anything. See my Workshop for information about live steam and larger scale model railroads.
My railroading activity of the last few years has been contributing to the Illinois Railway Museum. When I think about it, I get sorta sad, since I haven't been down there to see and ride trains in a couple of years now. I still send them money so they can keep the trains rolling, just in case I have time to go there again.
Most of my trains are in HO, but we no longer have a dedicated layout to run them on. We converted our purpose-built train room to other uses years ago. Slowly my dad is building a different layout, but there are construction problems which have caused reliability issues, so what basically happens now is that he spends all his time trying to fix or fixing the layout instead of railroading.
Recently I discovered two of Atlas's old O-Scale Industrial Switchers at a local hobby store. Not quite new, but the price was right for an O-scale locomotive! A locomotive led to a boxcar and some track, which led to a second car... And eventually the second locomotive so I could have something for signals to be used for. At the moment I'm waiting for a small pile of Atlas O-Scale 2 rail track to come in so I can make a small layout in my living room. Once the track comes in I want to get a few more cars.
One thing I really like about O-scale is that it is large enough to contemplate detailing without needing a micro-scope and precision laser guided hands. Well, HO isn't quite that bad, but I always felt so ham-handed doing detail work to my rolling stock. With O it feels just about right. I think G-Scale is also very nice, the thought of a garden RR is quite appealing. The cost isn't all that much different from O ... less expensive and a wider variety in many cases! The size is a bit larger though and takes perhaps too much room for inside.
The danger of larger scales is ... how large do you really want? Now that I have a tiny piece of O-Scale, I wonder about the truely awesome size of G-Scale trains. Really honking big trains which I could spend lots of time making trackwork in the backyard. Requiring all my non-existent time, get in the way of debris falling from trees, frost heave. Watterlogging. Floods.. Ahh, the joys of railroading!