a large-scale layout in Denver, Colorado,
modelling in 1:24 scale within the variations of large scale

Welcome and Preface

Welcome visitors, friends, family, other modellers, and anyone else who might have an interest in my layout. This website is something I play around with for my own satisfaction without any expectation that anyone might or should or even would be interested: the first thing I learned about model railroading is that, like other hobbies (and this is just a hobby), there is nothing less interesting than someone else's hobby! That's okay! You are welcome and any comments you have are welcome also.

As I said, this website is something I play around with for my own satisfaction. Modellers have different skills and interests, and from what I have seen they range across the entire spectrum of possible human activities and skill sets . . one of the things I enjoy is writing and making a nice website for myself. I also like the idea of memorializing my layout for myself, as if it were a real railroad! Well, it's my railroad, I'm enjoying myself, and if you've found your way here, I hope you enjoy yourself.

How My Modelling Interest Started

My interest did not start with a Lionel train set around the Christmas tree in the 1950s. You hear this story frequently from a lot of guys my age, but a while back I found a Lionel train set in my mother's basement which must have been mine, but I don't remember it at all. None. And I never had an interest in trains at any point in my adult life. I have the fondest and most powerful memories of the train map of the United States on the wall of the Cheyenne train depot because that's where I landed when I ran away from home in 1970. (We chose Chicago.) And I did enjoy the Amtrak train ride from Boston to New York City in 1981; l was attending the Museum School in Boston and visited Picasso's Guernica in New York and rode to the top of the new Trade Center. The train rides were merely transportation, as were my countless trips all over Boston on the T. I guess what I'm saying is that there's no harkening back to my childhood memories in my interest in model railroading; I just like it!

A lifetime later, toward the end of 2006, my young son became interested in the sound of the diesel horns from the Burlington Northern coal trains which run north and south along a double track about a mile west of my work. When the wind is blowing in certain directions, the blaring train horns can be heard clearly. One day, a few days before Thanksgiving, my son, who had just turned three a few days earlier, and I were headed south on Kalamath and were stopped by one of these trains heading north with a hundred or so empties on their way back to the coal fields in Wyoming and Montana. The others drivers made it through the crossing but we did not. Front row. At first I was annoyed, as usual, by what I knew would be a long delay. My son, however, was fascinated, and soon I found myself listening to the sound of the empty coal hoppers on the rails, mesmerized by the variations in the sidings on the hoppers, and noticing the tracks sinking and rising in the ballast where the wheels rode certain points. It's funny that now, while just about everyone else races to avoid the trains, I actually stop if I hear one coming, get the "front row" seat, and watch and listen to the cars go by.

On November 26th, the following Sunday, I took my son over to a store on Broadway, a store that I knew had trains, Caboose Hobbies, which has been part of the culture of Denver for a very long time. Denver wouldn't be the same without Caboose Hobbies, a wonderful place and they have a wooden railroad set-up in the front of the store for youngsters. We were at Caboose for over two hours. I couldn't get my son away from the wooden railroad or out of the store. Young children are supposed to be supervised at all time (okay, okay) but I found myself wandering around the store and, after about an hour, I said to myself, "You need a hobby. For your son's sake." The thought had never crossed my mind before that moment. In my entire adult life I had never had an actual hobby that wasn't related to art and painting. My hobbies were art history, the composition of artists' paints, collecting art magazines and pictures from them; you get the idea. Now, here, was a real hobby, meaning an activity I could engage in strictly for myself (and my children of course) without hope of any financial gain or recognition.

I didn't know there were different model sizes, but there are . . . from the tiniest Z up to G and F. I talked to one of the old timers at Caboose and he helped me with some of the ins and outs of the various sizes, "scales," and I decided on G scale because I couldn't see myself working on the smaller sizes. This is probably the first decision everyone entering the hobby makes, which scale. Also, since I wanted to involve my children, it seemed to me I wouldn't have to worry about them breaking stuff at that scale; whereas the smaller scales looked fragile to me and unsuitable for letting kids enjoy themselves without hovering adults. The one thing I wanted to make sure of was that this could be a family hobby, and I was willing to live with children breaking things now and then in exchange for their relaxed enjoyment and my peace of mind. (Okay, then. Having resigned myself to children breaking things, it turned out soon enough that I was the only one who broke anything, including a beautiful new Shay that through my own fault fell 120 scale feet off a bridge onto a concrete floor!)

I checked on my son to see if he's still there playing with the set in the front of the store, and I look around in the aisles some more. Looking around, more specifically, at price tags. It occurs to me that as a hobby this could be rather expensive. I took one of the old timers aside, and I asked him, "It seems to me a fellow could spend just about anything he wanted on trains." He smiles and says, "Oh, yeah, my friend." So I ask him, "Just between you and me, what's the most you ever saw anybody spend in here?" He proceeds to tell me about an English singer who showed up at ten minutes before closing on a Saturday, with a gorgeous young girl dressed in a tight white short dress, and with a personal driver who backed a big white van up to the front door . . . and within 55 minutes spent over 60,000 (that's sixty thousand) dollars. "Took everything up to a big house he has in the mountains." Oh, my.

It wasn't until a couple or three years later that I heard and read about an English singer with a fantastically superb city layout and who supposedly said he'd rather be on the cover of a model railroading magazine than on the cover of one of the big entertainment magazines. I discovered I had something in common with him. Well, he was famous, he was rich, had several wives, each younger and more beautiful than the one before, a world-wide career, from all accounts he was happy and well-adjusted, and his layout did actually make it to the cover, a couple of times, of modelling magazines. I'm unlikely to be or have any of those things! but I do secretly share a goal to some day have my layout featured on the cover of one of the modelling magazines, and I would would much rather have my layout on one of those covers than any of my artwork on the cover of any art magazine. Also, I'm reasonably happy and well-adjusted (I think), Ha!

How My Railroad Started

My model railroad started the way a lot of railroads start . . . by buying way too much stuff!!!