As the years have gone by, injuries and health issues have reduced my skills.
But despite it all, I still try to have some fun with a great hobby.
I have been a model railroader since I learned to crawl. In fact, I still have that very first
crumbling (Lionel!) book. I grew up in a family of many professional railroaders, knowing other
railroaders and their children. Family members worked for many railroads. Just mentioning a few
such as the Chesapeake & Ohio RY; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe RY, Northern Pacific RY; Pacific
Northwest logging rail operations such as Aloha Lumber; Polson Brothers; and Schafer Brothers.
And the family favorite Milwaukee Road.
Sadly, I could never hire on to a railroad, due to life long health glitches. Just enough to
keep me from that employment. I did work in construction and repair of rail cars, and with a
(civil) engineering firm which did some contract work for the Burlington Northern RR- That
was interesting. (Still have my BN hard hat.) I am also a past or present member of some rail
historical societies such as C&NWHS, MRHA, NPRHA, PSRHA, RITS, RSHS and some
railroadiana collecting groups such as IATOC, KL&L, NAOTC and RCAI.
I have modeled or collected in Lionel "O" and "O-27", Marx "O-27" and American Flyer "S"
gauges. (Past member of TCA, TTOS.) Also, in HO, N, On30 and HOn30 scales. I started N scale
in late 1972, and am still with it, 2022 being my fiftieth year. Along with HOn30. Active
past or present having built large and small layouts, N-Trak, oNeTrak, Bendtrack and
T-Trak modules. Also, I was one of the very earliest Kadee/Micro-Trains collectors, and
amongst the first two dozen members of the KDVCC, which this small group started the active
collecting of those brands. It was the auction of my entire collection, the first such
massive assortment ever done, (by Wick Brandon, original owner of Tex'N Rails), which
kicked off the entire mad auction and collecting craze. Prior to that, it had only been small
dribbles of such as ten, or twenty cars. Mine was nearing eight hundred cars at once!
This was a large collection, by standards of over thirty five years ago!
Note: I have not as yet applied dullcoat or weathering to the above projects.
I plan on doing this in a batch, when a few more items are ready for such a step.
No claim is made as to those historic documents or any other items displayed here which are not originally my own.
Such other items are public domain, or used with permission.
