|
Trains
- The Story
This
has been a life-long love-affair that now manifests
itself in model building and photography. I
grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, but moved away
in 1961. Up till that time there were three
railroads that served the area, the Louisville
and Nashville, the Tennessee Central, and the Nashville,
Chattanooga and Saint Louis Railroads. All
of these roads are just a memory now, mostly gobbled
up by the CSX, or just abandoned. I have
chosen to remember them all by way of models. Some
of them are painstakingly hand built or modified
to better represent the way things were railroad-wise
in Nashville and beyond, in 1950. I was only
8 years old.
There
is a model railroad in H.O. scale under construction. (H.O.
stands for "half- O" so designated when
originated over 60 years ago). H.O. is of
the proportion "1:87" or loosely 1/8" per
foot scale. True "O" scale is ¼" per
foot. It comes to these odd numbers by having
been converted from 3.5 mm per foot scale. Kinda
like "furlongs per fortnight".
This
layout attempts to capture the spirit of one in
particular, the NC&StL. Sound
your "Saint" when you pronounce those
initials. This road is one with a rich and
colorful history, (particularly the Civil War -- "The
War of Northern Aggression" as it is sometimes
called down south). There are lots of interesting
equipment and buildings. It runs as CSX now
through some of the most beautiful country God
ever made. Operationally challenging, the
line is represented by selectively compressing
the main features into one room. It is the
main stem from Nashville to Chattanooga.
I
have over 100 pieces of rolling stock (RR cars
and locomotives) lettered and detailed for that
road, which I have accumulated over the years. Two
of my locos are models of Diesels that I’ve owned
since the ‘50’s. I started in earnest building
NC (as it was called) models in 1967 when a friend
lent me a copy of Richard Prince’s Book on the
subject. I bought the book from him, and
it is worn out by now!
Full-size
trains
One
other interesting aspect of all this model building
is what I call the "Phoenix Phenomenon". In
late 1968 I was approached by a group trying to
restore a real steam locomotive to service. They
were short on steam savvy, and long on enthusiasm. I
was already a pretty good mechanic from all the
cars I'd worked on, so when they asked "what’s
a hydrostatic test and how do you do it",
I understood, and volunteered to show them. It
did not matter that I had never worked on anything
but models. Thus began an 8 year stint with
the Indiana Railroad Museum. Yeah, we got
that old girl up and running and tested and all,
and I became one of the engineers who trained other
engineers and tried to keep this teapot in steam. The
IRM has gone on to bigger and better things since
those days on a rickety ex-Milwaukee RR branch
in Indiana. I have retired from the rigors
of full-sized railroading due to health. It
was fun , but an enormous amount of physical work.
In
younger years, I went on camera trips, in search
of interesting railroad action to photograph. Many
were special excursions powered by steam locomotives
still remaining and lovingly restored. More
often, it was everyday down and dirty railroading
that has now passed from the scene. So there
is a rather extensive collection of prints and
slides taken 20-30 years ago that piques the interest
of even tepid railfans. There are even some
movies and tape recordings that are still good
today. Pretty interesting stuff, mainly mid-South
and Midwestern. I don’t find modern railroading
to be as interesting, since there are only five
mainline railroads operating now. Right or
wrong, I don’t usually waste my time and film,
but I still like to watch whatever goes by!
|
|