Everything I Know Is Because of Model Railroading

When I was eight years old I inherited my older brother's 4x8 HO model railroad. The track plan was pretty basic - a simple oval with a loop that crossed it's self in the middle. The entire 4x8 sheet of plywood was covered with a very ugly grass mat and that's all there was - the grass mat and the track. The 2 turnouts were controlled by built-in machines and the controls were right next to the power pack throttle. As simple as this was, I had a tremendous amount of fun running my very toy like Tyco trains around the loop.

I have a picture my mother took of me while I was running trains. I had this stupid grin, the kind that goes from ear to ear, it's quite an embarrassing picture, but shows how deep my love of the hobby runs. I started to add buildings to the layout, these came from the local toy store and I should emphasize toy. These kits were in the "Plasticville" series and looked, well, very plastic. I had a gas station, a church (with grave yard), a fire house, and a Cape Cod styled house.

The layout lasted like this until about 1983 when I met James. He and his father had train layouts, but they were much better than mine, but neither had scenery, so I had the upper hand (well, not really). James and I would work on each other's layouts. At one point, I tried to model the PRR's Horseshoe Curve on my 4x8 in HO - it was worth a try, right? The hubris of youth.

Since there were two of us running trains, I got the brilliant idea to add a second throttle so we could both run trains simultaneously. Neither of us knew a thing about electronics, I think we were eleven. I rode my bike to the library and borrowed a book on building model railroads and it had a section on wiring for two cabs (no one called them throttles). I had been mowing my neighbor's lawn that summer and had a few bucks so off I went to Belmont TV in the shopping plaza. I walked in, asked the guy for some toggle switches and came home with four or five. I proceeded to wire up the layout.

That simple act set in motion a career as an electronics technician and then a computer network specialist. Researching protoytpes and their histories fostered a love of history and geography. Wanting to better understand how trains were routed and managed, I started going trackside more and more. I purchased a scanner to listen to the dispatcher and train crews to aid in understanding the whys and hows of operations. This led to the pursuit of an FCC Amateur Radio license.

Even my interest in music can be linked back to model railroading. I became interested in electronic based music after an evening spent in south Baltimore watching trains. The former B&O's Baileys Wye is a bottleneck area for CSX and that means plenty of action happens there since many trains are stuck in the jam. It was there I discovered raves in the early 1990's - 2 locations in the area hosted some of the best there was in techno music. I would have never found those places had I not been chasing CSX trains at midnight. I would not have been out at midnight had the new GE's not been on the front.

I'm sure many people can cite a common reference point in their lives, mine just happens to be model railroading. Who knows what trouble I would have gotten into had I not been busy in the basement as a teenager running trains.