Interesting Distraction from the Rage
OFF THE RAILS
Not too long ago, a great friend of mine wanted help setting up his Lionel O Gauge train set which, in many ways, just fascinated me. He has a Santa Fe Chief which I Youtubed for you. This adventure led me to starting my own small train set, pictured above. Now, for many people, their idea of a model train is that train that Grandpa set up to circle the Christmas tree or that just went round and round, driving the cats and dogs crazy; I shared that idea for a bit but now see just how interesting the hobby is.
For instance, I grew up near the Milwaukee Road in South Dakota. This train was extremely orange with many assorted colored box cars. Then 20 years ago or so, the railroad changed to Burlington Northern, gone were the colorful, dazzling box cars, replaced by mile long brown coal cars. At least the locomotives were awesome, painted bright green, bordered black. One benefit was that sometimes if we’d pass a heavy train, we could wave at the engineer, and he’d blow his horn. Awesome! On calm nights, you could even hear the train rolling by 12 miles away.
After buying Athearn diesel locomotive SD45 Great Northern and some track, the first thing I learned about it is that crossing wires is not a good thing nor is having a loose track, which also causes derailments and causes the train to move slowly in the loose parts and faster in others. Patience is needed for these slight problems. Wiring the track was another learning experience. I taught myself to solder wires together for a better electrical connection as well as learning that soldering irons are very hot as I burnt myself badly on my finger.
Eventually I’ll upgrade the train layout to Digital Command and Control, equip the locomotives with sound and enjoy more of this fascinating hobby. If it wasn’t for this hobby at this time, I’d have gone postal and that is a bad thing.
