Thirty three years ago today I started building my layout. I spent many hours building L girders. I had a plan and dreams of having a fully functioning layout that I could share with my friends. I always worked 4-12 shift on the P.D. I would come home at midnight and work until I ran out of gas. Some nights it would be a short time and many times I would see the sun come up. Over the early years I kept at it and did not give up. I would live for my York trips to buy what I needed to keep things moving along. Early years after things were now up and running, I assisted Barry Lewis in testing many locomotives for a review in OGR. I submitted my first story to OGR in 1991 run 120 of OGR. Later, Rich Melvin came to my house to video the layout for OGR The Video. After that, Lionel approached me and was looking for a layout with tubular track to test this new thing called TMCC. That lasted for a while. It was perfect out of the gate.
A few years later, Mike Wolf was looking for a buss wired layout to test his new DCS system. We got double duty as we were also getting ready to do an article for OGR to hit about the same time the system did. While doing this testing, I discovered the light bulb fix. The early testing was intense as the remote was not yet made. We had a picture of a remote on a lap top with a touch screen. Yes people, running DCS with a computer is not a new thing.
Over the years I have had a great many train nights/days and as always, any OGR member who is in my area can come by any time. The layout was featured in the LCCA, LOTS, TCA and TTOS publications.
I had a desire to have live catenary and I persued it. I wanted my own design poles to look like something Lionel could have (should have) done in the 50's. I achieved my goal and have hundreds of feet of fully operating live catenary. This can be seen in OGR run 235. My layout was started with an end goal of a great running Toy Train layout. Although I run scale trains, I consider my layout a Toy Train layout.
In 3 weeks, LCCA is in Boston and I hope to see several OGR Forum Members at my open house. Ed Boyle already has a reserved seat for Sunday. I want to thank everyone for the support they have given me over the years. The layout is here as long as I am.
Thank you,
Marty
