GUEST BLOGGER: Dr. Richard H Knee - A Journey back to Model Trains
It was the summer of 2004 when retirement found me unpacking my worldly goods in my new home in the mountains of Western North Carolina. One of the boxes I unpacked held my childhood train. I remembered the many times my Dad and I set that train up under the Christmas tree but I had no idea what type of train it was. Some research on the internet (train folks are incredibly helpful) revealed that I had a Marx 931, circa 1948. That date was pretty close to the time when “Santa” put the train under the tree, I was 8 years old.
Click on the link below to read on
I wanted to display my train so I built a shelf in the family room to display the train along with a ceramic Christmas village my mother had pained. The complete story is on my web site at http://www.richardandjoy.com/family_room.htm
Soon I was driven to run my little train as I still had the 027 track and transformer it came with. That led me to a new Christmas tree layout of course. I was bitten by the memories and all the fascinating information I found on the Internet. I was fascinated by a Christmas train that ran around overhead at the Christmas store in a nearby town and wondered why I could not do that in my family room. Soon I was putting up a 12 inch shelf around the perimeter of the room. Of course, no corners where square and I had no carpentry experience – then there was the stove pipe, a major obstacle.
One year later I had learned enough over the Internet to lay a main line with one siding and two passing sidings around the entire room. The forums on the Internet found me well tutored by model railroaders on wiring, transformers, switches, and blocks etc. etc. etc. I found a bridge kit to get around that stove pipe and yes eBay found me with three new trains. You see there was no local train club to attend to learn what was need – just the Internet and a dialup connection. http://www.richardandjoy.com/train_room_layout.htm
One day last year I saw an ad in our weekly newspaper looking for anyone interested in model trains. That’s me, I called. Now this becomes another story and perhaps yet another post but the story can be found at: http://www.valleyriverrailroad.com/
The shelf layout looks great and good luck with MRR club! Thanks for sharing Dr. Knee.
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