Com'on! Let's go play trains!


My experience growing up with toy trains has turned into a Star Trek episode.

When I was very little, I had an 'N' scale train set. It was a double oval trackplan on a pre-formed foam base. The locomotive and cars were kept in their Aurora Postage Stamp case and the little 2 x 3 foot layout was kept under my bed. I can't remember what ever happened to that layout, and the case full of cars was lost in one of my many moves during my early 20's.

But wait, let's back up a bit. By junior high school age, I had moved to HO scale. I was lucky to have a place in the basement to keep a 4 x 6 piece of plywood propped up flat on shelves for a basic oval, tightly nailed down. I could run my Santa Fe diesel around and around all I wanted.


This is when I made a new friend that said he had a train set, too. He didn't call it a 'train set' though. He called it a 'model railroad'. All of the sudden, it sounded like trains weren't so nerdy anymore. He said he wanted to check mine out, so we made the plans and he came over. When my friend came down to the basement and saw my layout, I don't think he really knew what to say. In fact, I'm pretty confident that what he saw was not what he expected to see.

He saw a 4 x 6 piece of plywood with an oval of track nailed down. And a bunch of coarse pea gravel strewn over the top with roads cleared for Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. That's it. The end. No trees. No bushes. No grass. No hills or tunnels. No ballast, no river or lake, no people... not even any buildings. So he looked at my loco and cars (I suppose to be nice and to look interested) then invited me to see his layout.

Well, if you hadn't guessed, his layout had scenery. Plus, it even had a small yard! Wow!! I was Immm-pressed! And inspired. It didn't take long to turn my embarrassment into a paper mache mountain with a tunnel, a river, and two turnouts - one serving a warehouse and the other a cattle farm. I had buildings, grass, trees, cows and everything - - and a chest full of pride. I even scratch-built a wooden fence, and a standing billboard.

But it was all too late. Not long after that, I 'outgrew' the 'childish little trainset hobby' and moved on to 'bigger, better, and more worthwhile', teenager things. The 'model railroad', after all, was still just a trainset. Sure, I had fun running around with friends, but I couldn't have been more wrong about trains.

Eventually, I had sold my lot of HO stuff, and regrettably lost everything else. However, I held on to the idea that I would make another model railroad someday. Every once in a while I'd draw up a layout plan or sketch out a building project. As I moved around from place to place, I would think about starting a layout. But my money would always find someplace 'better' to go. Besides, I didn't have the space for a layout anyway and I'd probably be moving again.

Well, I'm a little older now. I'm not restless and wreckless anymore. I'm married and have a three year old son. I've started buying trains again (going back to N scale, where it all started) and I've got a couple of good layout ideas. I've also picked up the habit of buying the next Model Railroader off the newsstand. (I should just get a subscription.) I've done away with every excuse but two to have that layout now. You guessed it - - space and time. It's what I call the Space/Time Anomoly.

- - - - - > Marco