Happy New Year 2014

A new year begins....with it the old year past is gone, but parts of such are never to be forgotten.  Each of us, as individuals, had different experiences that were good, bad, and indifferent to remember, and in some cases, most of the time impossible to do . . . forget.  I have found out that those "forget times" were the times of growth.  Those were the times where the hard lessons of life came into our personal space.  Something had happened that we didn't care for, want, and/or appreciated, at the time.  Those times are IMPOSSIBLE to hang on to if we are to move forward and get re-focused to the positive areas that we do have at least a small amount of control of.

For instance...this past year started out GREAT with one of my dreams of being a Pastor as a reality.  Then health issues came into play and that dream has now become a memory.  I fretted, fussed, and mussed about it for a while, until I dug myself out of a pit that was only getting deeper and wasn't going to get any better unless I focused on the PLUSES of where I was at.  What I found out was that God puts us in places for a whole lot of reasons that we have neither no control of, nor have the ability to anticipate or calculate on the why we are there.  Once I got to that point, I am content with my life and am extremely happy being where I am, doing what I am doing, and looking forward to what is next in this wonderful gift that we call LIFE.  So I wish for you, my faithful reader, the best ever New Year.  I wish for you a whole bunch of experiences that God gifts you with to make your life richer and more fully filled with joy and excitement to discover what is next to put in your memory of how you made a positive difference on somebody's life.

There is a long time friend that I have made in Nevada that we (Pat and I) discovered when he invited us over to his new home for dinner years ago.  It is a beautiful home that he had done a lot of work into making it his own. We could tell he was very proud of his accomplishments of home ownership.  Beyond that fact, which was enough on its own, was that he had build an around-the-room, shelf model railroad, in one of his rooms!  Being an avid model railroader myself I was amazed at his craftsmanship and expertise in creating something so grand.  Just recently I "talked" to him on his Facebook page and asked if he still had his railroad, and he replied "yes".  Well, that started me thinking of when I had been actively building my railroad in Minneapolis where I had a heated, attached double garage.  I took over the far half of the garage for my empire, and spent many wonderful hours developing a vision based on my imagination, abilities, skills and knowledge to become a working miniature, moving creation.  I ended up building and re-building several times, and ended up building a layout that was the closest to being finished that I had ever had, only to be taken apart when we decided to move to Nevada.  "I'll re-build someday", I said to myself.  I even had a larger garage built on my home here in Tennessee to house a smaller, more compact version "some day".  It's ok . . . the garage became useful for a yearly Girl Scout cookie project, and now even to host a large  dinner party at Thanksgiving!  What a wonderful turn of purpose!  God is GREAT!  I realized that I had "been there...done that", and now don't have the time, nor the ability to start an new model extravaganza!  I am content knowing that I did build one (actually several) so it's no big thing.  I took pictures and even have an album describing the projects.  So, I told my Nevada friend, David, I would post the pictures here on my blog, so he can see my contribution to the Model Railroading hobby.  So the next several posts will be a running commentary with pictures on my empire building years on 1980-1987.

Most of these pictures were taken either from a Polaroid camera or a cheap regular camera.  Nothing professional quality of filming these projects...just so you know.

1980 Model Railroad
The following pictures in this issue and the following are of the building of model railroads from the Spring of 1980 to about April of 1987.  The space was approximately 9'x20' (half a double garage).  There were three HO scale layouts and 1 N scale layout in their own time, in this space.  In the "final days" there was the N scale large layout AND an shortline HO scale maxi diorama.

HO Scale

Lumber Mill (Scale miniatures)

This section is about 10' long...notice the track encroaching on the left (car) side of the garage.
Pat had some reservations about my intentions of "empire building" at that point.

9' across the back wall (actually the second garage door end)

This section is 30" deep from the wall to the edge of the layout.

Jan. plaster/paper towel mountain

Feb. 1980 Basic benchwork of new expansion section

Expansion continues along back wall

track being laid, turning loop complete

February 1980 lift out bridge section connects old (left) and "new" (right) section

Daylight passenger train waits to cross bridge to new section

March 1980...basic land forms complete on expansion

Two small trestle bridges and plate bridge were scratch built

Control panel for upper section (taconite plant) complete

Turning loop (in tunnel) finished  Upper level is taconite plant, to be installed

Supply train making a car drop.

little red blip is a motorized handcar puttering along main line

Front structure is a Scale Miniatures coaling station, built
board by board construction with many bass casting nuts and
bolts and many other parts.

Basically Finished project

Bridge lift-out removed for access.

Next issue we will visit a complete re-do with new benchwork and track plan from January 1981.

Hope this has been as enlightening and enjoyable for you as it was for me.  To this point it was a solo project.  My inspiration came from Model Railroader magazine and Model Railroad Craftsman magazine.  See you next time.

Remember,
Keep Singing, keep smiling, keep laughing

Blessings,
Gary