On Dec 30, a mile stone passed. The orginal part of the layout (which makes up 2/3 of the current one) turned ten. Or more precisly, that was the anniverseery of the first run. I opted to test it running my Amtrak train. Two blue box P42’s, one orient limited bagage, one walthers material handler car, 4 bachmann amfleet coaches, one walthers amfllet cafe, one bowser roadrailer. I figured if that can run trouble free, I shouldnt have any issuese. Which it did run issue free. And it did so this time as well. considering the layout has been dissassembled and moved to a new home. Which is where my grandfathers layout once was.
Except for one finiky turnout, it is still trouble free. plus add scenery now. The layout has grown too by 1/3. this was the first time that train has been run since Dec 2010. The one P42 rubber motor mounts didnt age well. They allowed the motor to move up tpo 20 degrees in all planes allowing the drive shaft to be thrown out of the couplers all together. It also had a wire issue. Waiting on new screw in mounts to arrive. Those were the only technical issue.
Hard to believe it has been ten years.
Tunnel at Snowshoe JTC
Quarry curve
Passing the steel fabricators
Silver snake passing the Snowshoe JTC shops.
Maybe in 10 years, it will happen again. Layout still
In 1967 my father handed over creative control of a layout he built for me. I was age 10 at the time.
In 1968 I joined the NMRA.
In 1970 I started working in a local hobby shop and joined a youth model railroad club they sponsored.
In 1972 I spent the summer in Harpers Ferry WV helping build an HO scale diorama of John Brown’s Raid, and was granted membership in the Severna Park Model Railroad Club.
In 1973 I went to work for a different local hobby shop, and by 1978 I worked there full time and manged the train department, and I started my 2nd layout completely of my own design and construction.
I remained active at Severna Park into the 1980’s than moved a little farther away and dropped out of the club.
Thru the late 80’s and early 90’s work and family kept me busy but I still built models and sometimes had small layouts. I ran a small mail order layout design service, long before the web.
I was a lone wolf until the mid 1990’s when I restored the old house, started a new layout and joined a local round robin group. In addition to my own layout I designed layouts for several members and helped in their construction.
Now I am starting on another layout. Let’s call it #6, and hopefully the liftime dream layout.
Nothing that happened in a year starting with a 2 is old…
I’d had a layout of some sort since I was an 8th grader. This spring will be 27 years since I graduated from high school! On another point (non-railroad), I have worked at my job so long that some of my coworkers haven’t been alive as long as I have worked there. (They are minors so go from there.)
Now are we talking feeling old as in years or in pain? My years may be up there but I can outlast 30 year olds on hikes. I can still put in an 8 hr day or construction (but rairly get the chance these days with whats going on).
A few things coming up. I started with my current employer April 1991 so 30 year anniversary for that coming up.
I consider buying my first copy of MR as being when I changed from a kid with a train set to a model railroader. That issue was Dec 1971, so 50th anniversary of that will come up later this year.
I got stuck on a job for 9 years, good thing because thats the only reason I get SS and medicare, just barely made the 10 years with the few non self employed jobs I had, and the last few years I was well paid too.
At least 14 different professions, often two or three at the same time, in the last 45 years. At least three right now… I tried working for a big company one time, I lasted a week and told them “no thanks”.
Only five different addresses in 44 years, only two in the last 26 years.
Same roadname and era for 30 years. Same scale for 53 years.
Same garden tractor for the last 26 years. Only one I have ever owned.
And only three pickup trucks in the last 26 years.
This Covid stuff is making me feel older. Being in lockdown for ten months (and continuing). Prior to March 2019 I had the Grandchildren having me help them to run trains.
Believe it or not, before I bought the big blue house in 1995, I never owned a pickup. Always had station wagons and sometimes drove company provided pickups or work vans.
1995 bought a used 1983 Ford F150 just for the house restoration, used it only about 20,000 miles and sold it in 1999.
2000 bought a 4WD F150, drove it 240,000 miles until 2015. 2015 bought the current super cab, long bed, 4WD, SUPER DUTY F250, now with 132,000 miles. It is a bus…
Quarry curve
