Hello Group, I'm new to The Train Board but not new to model railroading. I've been in the hobby for the past 43 years, but my story is a little different than most. I did not receive a Lionel train set for Christmas, as my father had a very good friend who happened to own a local hobby shop. My dads friend told him HO was the future in model railroading, so I received a Athearn HO train set for Christmas in 1967. The set included the new Athearn SD45 (note this was 1967, so the engine had the famous JET motor and did not have flywheels) in EMD Demonstrator paint, a stock car, a tank car, a boxcar, a flatcar with a boat and a caboose. All the cars and locomotive in the set was equipped with the world famous X2F (hook horn) couplers. The set included enough Atlas brass snap track to make a 4 x 8 oval. From my understanding the MRC golden throttlepack power pack was a seperate item. For the next few years that train set was only setup at Christmas, but after a few more years of negotiations I was finally granted one corner of the basement, just big enough for a 4' x 8' HO layout. I built and rebuilt that 4 x 8 foot layout many times until graduating from High School. Next it was a four year hitch in the USAF, then came a career, wife and family. During this period, I did not have room for a layout, but I did have a small work bench, so I continued to purchase undecorated locomotives, super detail, paint and decal them for my favorite home town railroads. I also continued to watch "N" scale grow in popularity. By 1989 I decided to take the plunge and give "N" scale a try, purchasing a new Kato GP38-2 along with the Micro-Trains pilot conversion kit a few Micro-Trains cars and I was hooked. I still do not have room for a large home layout, but since making the switch to "N" scale I've worked on a few Hollow Core Door layouts. My current layout is a free lanced branch of two local railroads. The first railroad I model is the Pittsburgh & West Virginia in 1963 just before the N&W merger and the second railroad I model is the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie in 1980 after it's independence and during the Conrail era. Both railroads do not exist at the same time on my layout, it's either one or the other and I do switch out all rolling stock and highway vehicles for the appropriate era. I've also made the switch from DC to DCC around 1998 with the purchase of a Digitrax Empire Builder set. Lastly, I've also been active in the "V" scale railroad communities since 2001. Virtual scale or "V" scale was a phrase coined for the different train simulator programs. I created two versions of the Lehigh & Hudson River railroad for the MSTS program. One L&HR is set in the 1940's just before the railroad replaced the semaphore signals and the second L&HR is set in the late 1960's to early 1970's before the bridge fire. I also created one version of the Montour Railroad set in the 1970's for the Rail Works program. Even though "V" scale railroading can be fun because you're not limited by the size, my true love is always model railroading. I mostly enjoy working with scenery / track laying and custom painting / decaling cars and locomotives. I do enjoy operations and operate my railroad using car cards and a timetable. Since I'm a lone wolf operator, I do not use Form 19's for train movements since only one train per day serves my branch line. I look forward to exploring the different forums on the Train Board and I've already become a member of the HCD group. Regards, Rich S.
Quite a bit of experience there. And I can also well remember those older Katos with no pilot on them...wasn't that a pain? It sounds like you could easily be a regular in many of our forums, and I hope you enjoy your time here!
Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. It is amazing just how much our hobby has changed over the last 40 years. Back when I received my first Mann Made CTC 16 system, I thought I was living the dream. That was vacuum tube technology compared to todays DCC systems. I have a question, how do I upload my own Avatar?
