10 years ago, I was 8 years old and into HO. I had around 5 engines and perhaps 30 cars my dad had only just built a layout for my HO trains. The thing I wanted more than anything else was a Lionel train. It’s really amazing how much can happen in just 10 years time and how far I’ve come from those childhood days!
I was recovering from a fractured back while doing some "train"ing in Boston.
It was a changing point for me. I converted my HO European DC layout to Marklin AC to eliminate a “Duck under” section. The Marklin trains looked better around the sharper curves I needed to use. The Marklin train came fron beneth the Xmas tree and were replaced with MTH Railking. Soon the Marklin trains will be a secondary part of a future Hi-rail layout. Yup…progress! Ain’t it wonderful!
Who could have ever thought the internet would become such an important part of our daily lives.
I had just switched states and jobs. My son was three years in the future. My Lionel collection was a lot smaller and a lot less focused. I had no immediate hopes for a permanent layout, and I had not yet begun to appreciate Standard Gauge. I was heavier, not thinner, and a great deal poorer in many ways.
Ten years ago, I was doing seventy-five miles a week with an average ten minute mile, and I could cut it to eight minutes with no sweat. Trains were O guage, but a Christmas only event. In October, I got a letter of resignation from my right knee. Fixed the knee with alternative medicine over the next three years, but gained a lot of weight while it was going on, now I am pushing it to do a seventeen minute mile three times in a week, but trains have become a much more year round event. Trains are more fun than running, anyway. You ever see a runner that was smiling?
I had just turned 30ish - we had only a 4 year old girl - whose adoption we were still paying off. I really wasn’t into trains - except through reading about them - we lived in a little house a few blocks away, I had much the same job (!) and the Chicago and North Western was being painfully amalgamated into the UP. I remember eyeballing their last two GP9s that switched the Chicago Passenger terminal. I did have Internet - Usenet only accessible through UNIX; I remember downloading the first Mosaic browser about this time.
Ten years ago…I can’t remember anything significant. We lived in the same house. I had an HO layout. I weighed nearly 300 pounds. I was working on a project at Saulte Ste. Marie for the US Army.
Ten years ago I was on my third strictly tinplate layout. Then we moved in 1998 and I began construction of my dream layout which measured 12’ x 32’. My dream layout quickly became a nightmare when it consumed most of my spare time and instead of being fun it turned into a chore.
I dismantled that layout in 2004 when we moved again. Now, in 2005, I’ve started building a new high-rail layout that measures a very easy to manage 5’ x 17’.
By the way, the January 1995 issue of Classic Toy Trains ran a whopping 178 pages.
I was getting started i the video business. Amiga computers ruled. IBM had 16 color, Apple had 1. Amiga 16.7 million for video. 2 mg video ram a whopping 16 mb ram. 9 GB HD ran $5000.
No kids, still with first wife. Sex was clean, air was dirty.
Live in apartment 6 miles and a whole different world then now.
NO JESUS. Too busy partying and having fun.
What is a train ? Had some in boxes in storage somewhere.
NO internet, but lots of BBS. Way cool, major flame wars, only took 10 minutes to download a small picture. Modems were fast 2400 baud.
Houses were cheap, still could get one in San Diego for $55,000, now you can’t build a pool for that.
I got younger since then, now I am 21, grey on the sides, and moving a litter slower. About 25 lbs lighter now, but can’t eat 3 fully loaded carne asada burritos like I could back then.
Ten years ago I was living in Dubuque, Iowa, and having a ball with toy trains and a variety of other things. The Internet was still somewhat wet behind the ears (and forums like this virtually non-existent), and the O gauge hobby was still in the early stages of what would become its profound rebirth.
Today I’m many miles away from Dubuque; still enjoying the trains (and have added a couple of scales to my areas of interest); and generally enjoying life in what I consider a beautiful area of the country (in the New River Valley between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny ranges).
In 1995, I had a 486sx25 computer. I had email, but can’t remember from whom. I hadn’t really heard of using the internet. I knew of BBs, but didn’t use them. I was getting ready to help de-commission the Navy’s west coast A-6 Fleet Replacement Squadron, VA-128.