I have always been a train nut, particularly if it involves steam engines. Some of my earliest childhood memories revolve around Steam Engines in North Bay. My father worked for the Railroad and my cousin and I often spent time at the round house. I could spend hours (still can) just looking at, and day dreaming about operating one of those giant, powerful machines. If my father had stayed in North Bay and continued to work for the railroad I most likely would have followed in his foot steps, however that was not to be.
However, I have never lost my love of trains, any size, any type. They still enthrall me. Maureen and I take trips down to the USA every year and we almost always hit at least one of the magnificent Rail Road museums located in all of the States within a days journey of Ontario.
Instead of working for the railroad I joined the Military, and while real trains were out of the question for me, I started to collect HO models. Being in the Military and moving around every few years it was not even possible to set up a train layout, so I just had to be satisfied collecting. When the Military moved us to North Bay we purchased a house instead of living in Military quarters and for the first time I had a place to start building my very own railroad. I already had a railroad of sorts, over 25 Engines and approximately 400 pieces of rolling stock, now I was going to actually have a road to run this stuff on.
I started building the layout and worked on it for a number of years, but alas it was never to be finished. I became very ill and unable to work on it any longer. As Katie grew up we needed more space in the house and the "Train Room" became a storage place. At the same time I discovered the computer and became addicted. The engines and rolling stock have all been pretty much put away and most of the layout has been taken down. Perhaps one day I will get to have another go at it, but as of this moment it time it does look doubtful. Ah, but I still have my dreams. I also have a magnificent collection of steam engine photos that I got from the net and spend hours just looking at them and dreaming.
I did take some photos of the layout when it was under constructions and thought perhaps you might like to see them.
This photo shows the offices and maintenance building for my railroad. Actually the building was not totally complete in this photo, there was more added later, including a glass covered walk way that went from that building to another that was over that upper level of track. The switch board controlled all of the switch tracks on the layout.
This shot is looking from the opposite direction.
Both pieces of track in front of this engine are actually on a bridge that goes across the doorway of the train room. The room doesn't have a door and I had a curtain hanging down. The bridge just lifted out when I wasn't running trains making for easy entrance and exit.
No train layout would be complete without at least one tunnel. I had three of them. This photo shows two of them.
This photo just shows the build up for the scenery that would eventually go on top.
In this photo you can see the smoothing layer going on to the build up.
Another view of the scenery under construction.
The bridge is hand made from pine. It would have been finished with a paint job to resemble steel construction.
It is hard to see but behind the Trestle bridge there is a flat bridge.
Unfortunately, these are the only photos I have of the layout. This was in the days before digital cameras became popular so these photos were taken with Kodak film. Also, these photos were all taken during the early stages of construction, probably within the first year. I had most of the scenery completed, plus a bunch of buildings that I designed and scratch built, when I had to give it up. All of my buildings were lighted on the inside and were completely furnished.
