A little background and a look into the future

I've never been much of a blogger and I don't know that this will be a regular feature for me. I have read many of the blogs here with interest and decided to share a little background into my interest in this great hobby of ours.

  

I got back into model railroading about a year ago. I say, "back into model railroading" because when I was growing up, my Dad and I inherited a room full of HO-scale model railroading supplies from my great uncle Byron. He had 2 or 3 4-foot filing cabinets packed completely full of stuff: track, rolling stock, locomotives, models, wire, nails, glue, power supplies -- you name it, it was probably in there.

My Dad and I built a layout table. I think is was a 4' x 8' table. I was only in 5th or 6th grade so I didn't really help all that much. We had a basic oval mainline with a passing branch. There was a spur that led to the middle of the layout. I don't remember if there was a turntable or not. We never did get past the track laying stage. We never made the mountain that we talked about. We never put together any of the models. We never ballasted the track. We just had a basic oval that a train could go around in circles. At that age I didn't appreciate what we had. It was all just toys to me. The funny thing is all these years later, I don't even know what happened to all the stuff. I think it went to a club, but I can't say for sure.

That experience has always been at the back of my mind. All these years later (I'm soon to be 43) that experience came to the fore front and I wanted to build a model railroad. My wife and I don't have a lot of space to devote to such a venture, so my first thought was a z-scale shelf-based layout. I could put that up in my office. Z-scale turned out to be to expensive and there wasn't a whole lot of selection. I am fortunate enough to live near the "world's largest train store," Caboose Hobbies (it is painted on their exterior wall so it MUST be true). The people that work there are great. Most of them are true enthusiasts themselves. I was steered to n-scale. More affordable, better selection and still small enough to fit in my office. After doing some rearranging I found that I had enough room for an approximately 4' x 3' table layout.

I really didn't know anything about the hobby. Caboose Hobbies has weekend classes and I went to a couple of them to help get my feet wet. I built a table, glued down a piece of 1" foam insulation, bought enough Unitrack to make a single oval with a spur along with a locomotive (an Atlas GP-7 Phase 1), a couple of box cars, a caboose and a power supply. Unitrack is wonderful stuff. It took less than 20 minutes after getting home to have the oval set up and a train going around in circles! The layout has grown since then. It now has a double mainline with two cross-overs and a spur. Nothing terribly exciting, but a start.

When I first got into the hobby my interests were in the laying of the track, the wiring of the control panel and the running of trains. I had no interest in scenery. I didn't know how to do any of that stuff. Caboose Hobbies has several fantastic layouts though out the store. I've been to a couple of train shows and the layouts on display there were also wonderful. Nope, I'd let my wife worry about the scenery. That's beyond what I'm able to do. Funny thing is I think my wife said that she was interested in doing the scenery just so I'd actually stop talking about the hobby and actually do something!

Guess what I learned? I can do scenery! My layout has a hillside at one end with the double mainline going right through it. No tunnel -- I cut a channel right though the hillside. I've got a pond/spring with a river flowing from it that converges with another river. The hill is full of homemade conifers that I learned how to make from an article in Model Railroader Magazine.  I even built a log cabin completely from scratch!  I originally wanted to make it just like it would be done at full scale with notches near the ends of each log, but the dowels were too small so I had to go with the "2-foot" rule and fake it. I am really pleased with how it turned out.

Now I'm planning the expansion to the layout. I have a couple of 2-drawer filing cabinets and a small free-standing shelf unit that I can build right over top of. The expansion area will be about 96" x 30" and connect to one end of the current layout to form an L-shaped layout when finished. (Yeah right, "when finished." When is a layout ever finished?)

I'm thinking of building the expansion with flex track. don't get me wrong, I love Unitrack. The stuff is bullet-proof, as has been stated here many times over. It's also a bit pricy. I'm going to add some elevation to the expansion. It will be cool to see one train going over a bridge while another train passes underneath. I'm planning on having 2 or 3 industrial spurs to make operations more compelling. I will always be a "watch the trains go round-and-round" kind of guy but there are times for operations as well.

 

If you've made it this far ... you must really be bored!  Thank you for taking the time to read a little about me and my interest in this wonderful hobby of ours.

 

Brad Bumgarner, CTA

Owner and Operator of the K&B Railroad