As I continue to transfer all my photos out of Photobucket, I’ve come across a lot from where I was when I first joined up to where things are now. Sometimes it’s amazing to look back at how things were and wonder how you ever survived!
Stuck on the bedroom floor. Didn’t have many other places to setup at the time though!
And the tribble attacks were fierce! I managed to fight them off with some quadrotriticale.
I finally started an actual layout! Yay!! That was 15 years ago…
The older I get the more I think about my first HO layout back in the early 50s, I was 14 when I built an around the wall shelf layout. I didn’t have a camera so just memories.
Back then there wasn’t any flex track, I had to hand lay iron rails on fiber ties. The ties came as a 25’ roll from Atlas for $1.25 and rails were 5¢ each or 3 for a dime.
I bought my first HO locomotive an MDC 0-6-0 kit for $6.85 with paper route money. Still runs great!
I don’t have pictures of my youth-hood layouts. But here’s a look at when I was beginning my current layout, 11-30-2006. The track in the right foreground was there from a section of the previous layout I moved into this room and expanded.
The track then was extended all the way around the along-the-walls layout, fully operational, and some scenery skeleton had been added. What’s ironic is that I didn’t like what the track plan had become, I eventually replaced or relocated every inch of track, EXCEPT for what is in this picture!
By 2018, the track plan had evolved to where it is now, but the backdrop had gaps in it, and didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling. And there were only 6 light fixtures up there.
In 2018 I tore out the backdrop, sheetrocked all the way up and painted, and added 6 more lights to even up the light-dark contrasts. All with the layout in place! Much progress has been made since then too, but I’m having some files troubles. Dan
After I got into the hobby back in 2017, the town that unfolded looked familiar. When I had occasion to go through some old pictures, I found out why. I had created pretty much the same layout with a Kenner Girder and Panel Building Set back in 1964.
I have no pictures of my early days of model railroading. I still look up what the box of that first train set had and smile. Everything to hook a young boy! Not just a train and some track, but buildings, scenery, an operating crossing gate, and even a completely realistic mountain tunnel! [(-D] I had a blast with this set. Didn’t set it up like the picture, but I can still see that first layout clearly in my mind.
To go back in time, I just go up one flight of stairs. My layout is Transition Era for a reason. I like it back there.
Back in the day, I always heard crickets and tree frogs. I saw fireflies and lots of stars. I could hear trains on the other side of town if it was still enough.
The first part of my current layout, 2018:
