Hello everyone.
I stumbled onto this site recently. Wow - there's a lot here!
The decision to get back into model railroading is sort of the convergence of a few different things...
1. Recently the gas company was doing some in the street out front and hit street car rails! It got me to doing research on the street car system here in St. Louis. I live right at what was pretty much the western end of the line c. 1900. I'm right at the loop where the car returned to the city. I've compiled lots of books on the subject and a collection of pictures but still haven't found anything yet of what the "Columbia/Tamm Loop" looked like in the day. This line was abandoned around 1940.
2. A recent basement cleanout got me dusting off the Lionel set I bought my son years ago. I had a fairly decent HO layout back in my youth but my parents threw it all out when I was in college. My first set for christmas in 1969 was a Tyco? UP freight setup that I watched go in circles for hours.
3. My wife and I have been doing a lot of work researching our ancestry and her family has a rich railroad tradition. Stationmasters, yardmasters, etc. Lots of railroads going way back but most recently the Wabash. We've got some really cool pics of them standing out in front of their own private cars. One even left his position here to go work on the Panama Canal and then a railroad in Puerto Rico.
4. I live very close to the BNSF "Lindenwood Yard" and hear the sounds of trains constantly. Not a day goes by where I dont see some sort of freight train go by. Also get to see a lot of Union Pacific go by. Years ago when I drove my son to school we were constantly getting stopped by passing trains which I loved. My son not so much because it meant being late to school and a demerit!
5. There is a "Frisco Park" on the map in my neighborhood. It's on Google Maps and most other maps but is really just a chunk of nothing stuck between a backyard and the interstate right of way. Apparently back in the day it was used by the Frisco railroad. There are still a few faded "Ship it on the Frisco" in and around town that I've always thought were cool. Our neighborhood even had it's own station but it was on the Missouri Pacific line.
6. I've always secretly desired to be a train engineer.
7. As a kid we always took the train to see relatives in Albuquerque. We took the Santa Fe Super Chief. It was awesome as a kid.
I'm in the early stages right now and I'm really limited in terms of room for a layout, time and funds (current house renovation). My focus will be on the Frisco generally and street car loop. Time period maybe 20s - 40s. Maybe a litle MoPac and Wabash to follow as those lines are really nearby as well. So it's an abstraction of the nearby Lindenwood Yards and a small street car loop that mimics my street and my office that is around the corner. There is a Western Hobbycraft trolley that looks pretty similar to the car that ran this route back in the 30s so I'll be sniffing around for that.
I'm going to have to be content with something 3 x 7 or so for now because everything is in flux and portability will be key. Whatever I do for this first foray will be permanent and something that I would like to be able to haul up from the basement to enjoy around the holidays.
While there is a certain "toy" quality to the 027 track (which I've got a pretty good amount of) that I really like, I'll probably be ditching that for more realistic track and switches that take up less room on the board. I guess the effect I would be after is semi-realistic fun. That's really why I love O scale. I'll also be keen to replicate a few of the buildings in my neighborhood on the street car loop.
So I'll be planning, checking out this forum for ideas and inspiration, picking up some odds and ends/sniffing around for some deals and figuring this out for now.
Cheers.
Tim
