My Model Railroading Journey

My first exposure to model trains was in 1988 at the young age of 7, when my Grandfather bought me my first Christmas train set.  Like most 7 year olds I pretty much played with the train for those Christmas weeks and then it basically sat untouched in an unused bedroom until such time when my Grandmother probably instructed my Grandfather to clear it out.

In the summer of 1993, now a curious 12 year old, I began rummaging through closets to discover the "train set."  Along with the trains were a few copies of Model Railroader magazine and having matured just enough, my interest was immediately drawn to the amount of detail and enormity of what true Model Railroading was all about.

Soon my Grandfather and I built a 4x8 double oval, and purchased a few additional models to round out our collection, including an Athearn, Alco PA, in the New York Central Lightening Stripe scheme.  That Alco was such a beautiful design and I credit that model for influencing my decision to model the NYC.

While making frequent visits to our local train shop, Altoona Shops,  we were exposed to other model railroaders, some of whom were anxious to share insights and some that seemed to have a lot of "trade secrets."   It was our exposure to one particular "local" that changed most of what we knew or understood about trains.

That person was Greg Dickinson of Elmira, NY.  Greg was very willing to share his knowledge of trains and if you have ever met Greg, you know he always has a lot to share!  Greg introduced us to the Cornell Railroad Historical Society, which had an HO scale operating group and a 60 x 80 foot modular layout that made appearances at two train shows a year, Syracuse in November and then Ithaca every Spring.     Time was flying and our layout and respective knowledge was increasing just as fast.   

In the early summer of 1998, through our connection with the Wilcox Bros., at Cornell,  we were invited to join a select operating group in Waverly, NY, the Carolsburg and Genesville RR, a private road built by the late  Dr. M.E. "Gene" St. John, featuring the latest technology of Digital Command Control.  The group consisted of probably 25 professional model railroaders all of which had great interest in prototypical operations.  My Grandfather and I would remain part of the core group of operators for the C&G until his passing in 2004.  I continued on with the C&G group until the death of Gene St. John in 2011.

 In the late autumn of 1998 we successfully built 12 feet of modules as a part of the operating group at Cornell and our coal mine themed layout premiered in November at the NewYork State Train Show in Syracuse, NY, and again at our local Ithaca train show in April of 1999.

During all of this time, that 4x8 setup at my Grandparents grew into a 16 x 18 foot layout that I called the Allegheny Division featuring operations of the New York Central and Lackawanna Railroads in a generic Eastern mountain region.   With our experience operating DCC on the C&G, I believe I was one of the first Model Railroaders in the Elmira area to have a fully DCC controlled layout.  

In August 1999, my participation with the C&G group, Cornell society and most of my model building activities came to a halt.  I was off to the University of Dayton to begin my college education.  Interestingly enough, I quickly learned that there was a group of Roman Catholic Marianist Brothers at UD that also liked trains and had a layout in the basement of the rectory.  I made a few visits and tried to keep up on reading historical texts on the New York Central.

Of course Dayton was a great railroad town in its own right, having both the NYC and the successor road to the Lackawanna, the E-L.  While I was a student, Conrail and then CSX provided a lot of railfanning opportunities when I was not busy learning all of the other things that a young college guy had to learn about...  When I came home on breaks, getting to the layout room at my Grandparents was always a top priority.  I spent most of those four summers at home working on building the layout and my Grandfather kept things in good order by running the trains while I was back at College.

I graduated from UD in 2003 and then came back home to figure out what to do with my life. 

As life would have it, my Grandfather unexpectedly got sick and died in October of 2004.  My best friend and modeling partner of more then 10 years was gone and it took a few months before I was able to do anything related to trains or the layout.  Then by 2005, I had decided to get back into the hobby, this time exploring my abilities as a custom painter.  For about two years, I did custom painting and sold  trains at train shows.  

Realizing that I had to make good on a promise to my Grandfather to continue my education, I was presented with an opportunity to go back for my Masters Degree in 2006 at Elmira College.  I ended up working for the College in Residence Life.  Dorm life was not very conducive to model railroading and so my layout and related involvements again came to a stop.  It was during this time that I met my wife, got married in 2009, had our first daughter Natalie in 2010 followed by Emilia in 2012.  In the summer of 2012, I took a job with Guthrie Healthcare and that afforded us the opportunity to buy a house and with it an attic space that houses the current layout under construction.

So there you have it: over two decades worth of my personal model railroading history.  Little did I know in '93, that I would build several layouts, build a collection of hundreds of pieces of rolling stock and fifty plus locomotives, dabble with custom painting and selling trains, join numerous railroading operating groups and historical societies and perhaps more importantly have met and befriended so many people.  

And with that, welcome to the present day.