in the beginning...

My entry into the world of model railroading started when I was four years old, my dad bought me a Lionel 3 rail train set consisting of an 0-4-0 loco and an assortment of freight cars. I was fascinated by this set, so much to the point that I wanted to know how it worked. One Saturday morning as my dad woke up, he found me on the kitchen floor with a screw driver and the guts of the loco on the floor surrounding me. Needless to say we were not able to fix it and he wasn't very happy. Exit, the world of O gauge.

ho on a shaggy rug?

Not long after my disection of the O scale loco, I was given my first (of many to come) HO scale AHM trainset by one of my mom's friends husbands. With renewed interest, I took that set to my dad's house and we attempted to set it up on the living room rug. Now mind you this is 1979, so needless to say, the rug was of your typical 70's shag vintage, not a good match for the motor in an HO scale loco! We managed to get an oval of track setup, although the set really called for a figure-8 including the required trestles and bridge.

The set came with a pair (powered and dummy) of C-Liner's decorated in the Soo red/white scheme and an assortment of freight cars. At the time I had no idea what a C-Liner was, to me it looked like the F-units (F10's as I later discovered) that the local commuters were pulled by on the MBTA Commuter Rail. The included track was had brass rail and a black/brass power pack provided the power. I still have this power pack and until a few years ago used it regularly to power accessories and switch machines on a layout. Although we never really had the whole set up and running, this was what launched me into the world of scale model railroading

This is the loco that came with my first HO set

my great grandpa...

My dad and I made it a regular habit of visiting my great grandpa who lived up in Kennebunkport, ME. I came to discover that my great grandpa was also a model railroader when he was younger, having quite the collection of HO trains. These trains were now stored in the attic at my grandmother's house.

With this new discovery, I was eager to make my way to her house and look through the new treasures stored in her attic! And I was right about treasures, Here I found several boxes containing many older HO locos, freight and passenger cars. My great grandpa was apparently a New Haven fan because that is what most of the equipment was decorated for.

My instant favorite was an Athearn Hustler in NH McGinnis livery. I still have this loco, and it still runs. Until my recent switch to N scale (more on that later) I was planning on following some steps I found online to convert it to DCC. Who knows I still might. As the years went by, my great grandpa would send me a new loco every once and a while, usually some sort of bowser steam loco. I wish I still had those... never really quite sure what happened to them.

evolution of the plywood & eastern railroad

With my every growing collection of HO trains, along with a ton of track that I found in my great grandpa's collection, my dad finally decided it was time to put some track down permanantly on plywood. We went to the local Grossman's and purchased a 4x8 sheet, which took up most of the space in my tiny bedroom in Dad's apartment, but I didn't care, I wanted to run my trains!

We layed out an oval of track along with two new turnouts to form a passing siding allowing me to store some of my cars here. Of course I was very disappointed to learn that I couldn't store an unused loco on the siding while another was running. I hadn't yet discovered the concept of block wiring and insulting sidings and spurs. For now I had to be content with one loco on the track at a time.

As time went on we added more turnouts and then after moving into a new home, add a whole new train set to the layout. This was a Tyco figure 8 set, similar to my first AHM. This one came with an Alco diesel of some sort decorated for the Virginian Railroad.

We added two turnouts to the set, each passing in the center of the loops of the figure 8. I also added a Life-Like grass mat to the center of each loop. The turnouts were powered this time, using Atlas machines, and I also added street lights in various parts of the layout. This was the start of using my AHM power pack for the accessories and the "newer" Tyco pack for the layout itself. Go ahead, chuckle on that for a bit, I still do.

This was the first layout I actually gave a name to. Since we were living in Lowell, MA at the time and spent a lot of time in nearby Nashua, NH, I called my layout the Lowell & Nashua or L&N for short, completely unaware of the prototype L&N.

This name stuck for a while, but as I expanded and re designed the track plan things changed. I found myself becoming more and more of a Pennyslvania RR fan. By this point I had aquired many PRR locos, both steam and diesel and began to develop fictional history of my railroad. The layout was now called the Pennsylvania & Lake Erie, again unaware of the existance of a real P&LE.

At this point my loco collection had grown considerably, most of it from the PRR, but also alot of Southern Pacific as I had a facsination with the Daylight. Oddly enough, even though I loved the Daylight scheme, all my SP equipment was more modern diesel power in the gray and red nose scheme. All my new power was from Athearn, finally moving on to reliable locos and away from the toy like stuff from Tyco, Bachman and Life-Like.

operations, and the end of an era...

It was around the age of 12 that I discovered the operational possibilities of a model railroad. I had recently been thumbing through various issues of Model Railroader magazine and read about switch lists, schedules, etc. This inspired me to create my own passenger schedules and switch lists for my P&LE model railroad. While I never had the change to operate these with anyone other than myself, it lead to my continued interest in real railroad operation for my up coming layout.

This theme carried on until the dismantling of the layout in 1993 due to the passing of my dad from cancer. My HO stuff was then packed up and put into storage in my mom's attic, awaiting a future time when I could setup a new layout.

long time arm chair modeling...

With all my HO stuff going into storage, I started a long phase of arm chair modeling. I continued to read Model Railroader and other related books, and attended train shows picking up equipment as time and money permitted. I also would occasionally design a new track plan for my "what if" layout, in the case that space would become available. It was at this time that my modeling interests began to shift from the PRR to my home area of New England. I began to develop a new interest in the Boston & Maine in particular.

In 1999 or so, Woodland Scenics released their first foam layout kits in N scale. With my limited space, I thought this may be a great way to get back into the hobby in an active way. I went to my local hobby shop and had them order the "Scenic Ridge" N scale layout kit. I purchaed the required Atlas sectional track to go along with it and jumped in gung ho! As time went on though my enthusiasm for this kit and its limited possibilites became stale and it was never finished. In the end I salvaged the scenery materials I could along with all the track and tossed the rest in the trash, back to the arm chair.

I continued to pick up equipment at shows and the hobby shop, but this time in N scale, with the thought that I will revisit my N scale plans at some point. I purchased some B&M N scale locos, including two Atlas GP40-2's and a Life-Like GP38-2.

hold on, we're hitting the fast forward button...

Here we are, in 2004 now, Christa and I, not married yet, have just moved into our town house in Nashua, which has a good size basement. I of course jump right into layout planning mode and start negotiating with Christa what space I'll have available for my railroad use.

I am able to procur one of the front corners of the basement, and with thoughts of this being Tyler's first layout, who wanted to help with construction, I went right into planning your typcal 4x8. With a collection of both HO and N scale, I picked HO as this is what I had more of, but I stuck with my B&M theme rather than reuse my PRR equipment. This meant we had to purchase a few new locos, enter ebay.

I found ebay to be a great place to buy my B&M equipment. On the site I was able to purchase a Proto2000 B&M BL2, GP18, two custom painted Athearn GP9 shells in the B&M blue-bird scheme, and an Atlas RS3 in the blue-dip scheme. I used the GP9 shells to replace those I had from my old P&LE days, one was a UP, my first Athearn loco ever purchased, and the other was an undecorated unit that I had started to paint in what was then the P&LE color scheme of a dark green and yellow, not a very eye pleasing design when I think back on it.

off and running

With a new track plan set, we purchased the lumber and foam for our new train table, which consisted of a 4x8 table with 1x4 frame and 2x4 legs, and pink extruded foam glued to the top. I layed out the track plan using sectional track, drew in the center lines using a marker on the foam. I then removed the sectional track, placed cork roadbed down following the center lines I had drawn in and then layed Atlas code 83 flex track on the roadbed.

I don't have a copy of that track plan any longer but it was inspired by plan #32 in 101 Track Plans by Lynn Wescott. Afer laying track and building a tunnel around one corner out of foam and plaster cloth, I began to test operations on the layout and realized it was not going to meet the operational desires I had hoped for. While continuing work on the scenery, I went back to the planning process to see what else I could come up with. I decided I could make better use of the space with a shelf type design with an open middle. This led to what became my new plan:

So the new 4x8 came down and planning for the construction of the new one began. This time around I decided to use a modular approach. I built the layout in sections, each 2'x4' constructed of a 1x4 frame with pink foam glued to the top. These were then secured together with c-clamps. I built four of these modules to start and began laying track in the yard area. I was going through withdrawl, I needed to run trains! Photos of the new layout progress are in my gallery here.

time for pause again...

As things were starting to progress on the new layout, Christa and I had been talking about moving into our own home, and guess what, that time had come. With the birth of our daughter Emma and Auntie Linda staying with us, we had out grown our town house we had been renting. After a bit of a search, we settled on a new home in another part of Nashua. This one had a finished basement which was great from a train room perspective, but it was oddly shaped, hard to negotiate which space would be usuable.

The HO track was removed, and the modular sections seperated into their individual sections. My plan was to reuse these for what ever layout I was to build at the new house. Once unpacking was done and some time was put into setting up the family room, I was able to secure an 8'x8' corner of the basement for my layout. As I started to think about track plans, I realized that with this space, I could get a lot more layout into it if I went back to N scale rather than HO. This thought made the most sense, and with it, the HO stuff stayed in storage, the N stuff was taken out. I reassembled the modules into an L shaped form and added a 1'x2' extention to each corner to allow for N scale loops with a radius of 15". After several attempts at a track plan, I finally settles on form of figure 8 that would allow for operation and "rail faning" depending on what I am in the mood for.

off and running again...

We've finally made it to the here and now. The benchwork is done, and the track is to be purchased. I have back dated my N scale layout to 1952 from 1978, but still B&M themed. I have a Model Power 2-6-0 and an Atlas GP7 that will provide the primary motive power. Both locos will need to be converted to DCC as I will continue to use the MRC Prodigy Express I had for the HO layout and do not want to deal with block wiring. The new track plan can be viewed from the link in the nav bar above.