After answering another post about new members, I felt compelled to introduce myself formally. I was delighted to rediscover my interest in model railroading this past fall.
I started in the hobby when I was about 13, as a natural outgrowth of my fascination with mechanical things, model building, and art. I convinced my parents to let me build my own version of Malcolm Furlow’s Carbondale Central RR (see January - March 1988 MR) in our basement in NJ.
My “break” from the hobby started approximately when I got my drivers’ license and started messing with cars, continued through college and through my single life in a small apartment, and ended recently when after cleaning out the basement of our house, I had this epiphany that I finally have my very own really nice, dry basement with a fairly decent amount of space!
I promptly put a 2006 Walthers HO catalog on my Christmas “wish list” and asked my dad to dig all of my old Kalmbach books out of the attic back in NJ. Since baby #2 is coming in a few months, I am not making any grandiose plans for the next few years, but I am content to do some reading, get ideas, and do some planning. I can even build a model or two at a time without too many financial worries (a big plus for our single-income family when my other “hobby” is a Mustang GT that requires several hundred bucks’ investment anytime I want to customize it for fun).
What amazes me is how much has changed. The Walthers catalog is about 50% larger, Digital Command Control is now the rule, and there is a proliferation of internet resources that just wasn’t there in 1991. What is also great is that some things have not changed - a good number of the good authors of the time like Dave Frary and Lou Sassi are still putting out books and articles . . . !
Anyhow, I am very glad to have found this forum. Looking forward to building my new pike over the coming years.