Yep, I Love Trains.

I have a feeling that most people don’t realize how much I love trains and model railroading. It all started when I was a very little boy. I don’t know if it was a Christmas or Birthday gift but my Mom and Dad got me my very first train set: Lionel O scale (O scale is pretty big in size and the locomotives can exceed a foot in length). It was big and it was beautiful. It had a classic Santa Fe locomotive (with that distinctive red war bonnet nose) and several different types of cars including a red caboose. I would sit on the floor for hours watching my train go by. The sound and that little whiff of ozone were pure kid heaven. And Dad and I always mused about how we’d make a train layout together (a layout is when you affix the tracks to a board and build scenery).

Well, O scale trains are really big and also really expensive. And as a kid I didn’t have much money and much space for my beautiful O scale Lionel train. I needed to think smaller. So early in high school I took all my bonus money from selling Boy Scout Christmas wreaths and started buying HO scale trains (which are smaller and less expensive than O scale trains). And now my Dad and I started to get really serious about a train layout because we could do a lot more for less money and in a smaller space. In fact, we’d go to all kinds of model train shows together and dream of the cool scenery we’d make. And in the interim I set up my HO scale trains on the floor in the upstairs of my Grandma and Grandpa’s house. That was my zone. I built little structures, I added more and more track, and, no matter what, if I was having a bad day I could always hang out with Grandma and Grandpa and run my train and dream that I was on that train going to new and beautiful places.

Time passes and life changes. Off to college. Grandma and Grandpa pass away. Mom and Dad move. And my trains and train dreams get packed away. And life continues to change. Go to dental school. Get married. Move around the country. Practice dentistry. Become a dental professor. And then something happens. Life events sometimes remind you of where you once were and what your most special dreams used to be.

Five years ago I had a life changing event. During that time I rediscovered model trains and immediately felt like I arrived back at a happy place. And unlike the past I’m not putting my trains and train dreams back in a box. Plus, I have a little more money and space than I did back in high school. So I have been collecting model trains like a mad man (I have such a patient and supportive wife). I started out by collecting N scale trains which are smaller than HO scale trains (N scale locomotives are 4 to 5 inches long). And this past spring (2019) I bought my first Z scale train which is the smallest scale of them all (locomotives are 3 inches long) but we don’t refer to them as cute!

So there you have it. I love trains (model and otherwise). I don’t have that layout yet but it’s in the works. Stay tuned. Oh, almost forgot: someday I’d love to take Amtrak’s Southwest Chief from Chicago to California and then take the California Zephyr back spending time seeing America the old fashioned way and taking pictures and writing music.