My Childhood: Model Railroad

A few years after we moved to Stoddard, I received a very large present for Christmas. The box was wide and high, but not very thick. It was heavy, and didn’t rattle at all when it was shaken.

Naturally, it was the first thing that I opened. When I ripped off the wrapping paper, I smiled with delight. It was a model train kit, containing a locomotive, some freight cars, rails and a few pieces of scenery.

Within an hour or so I had the train set up on the floor of my bedroom. The kit contained everything I needed for a figure-eight layout, with trestles and a bridge. It was wonderful, and I spent the next few days happily playing with my new toy.

Shortly after that, I decided I needed to make it more permanent. The railroad was in the way on the floor, liable to be stepped on at any time. I asked my dad what we could do to improve the situation, and he set up a table for me. He purchased a 5’X8’ piece of plywood, and laid that down on top of the table.

Now I had a permanent place in which to build my model railroad up to my hearts content. First, it was necessary to purchase some more materials. With the money I’d earned from mowing lawns, I purchased several dozen pounds of plaster, some nails, green felt and other assorted odds and ends. I mixed the plaster and used it to build hills and valleys and rocks and things all over the surface of that piece of plywood.

My plaster hills were solid. Since I expected to have to move the thing someday, before I poured the plaster, I pounded several large nails into the plywood. My theory was that the nails would hold the plaster onto the wood if it was necessary to move the entire layout.

After creating the hills, I nailed the track down to the wood in the same figure eight layout that I had set up originally on that Christmas day. The layout was very simple and straightforward. I didn’t know any better, and besides, I was having more fun creating the scenery than actually running the train.

Over the next few years I added hundreds of dollars worth of equipment to that layout. I purchased several trains, several dozen pieces of rolling stock (boxcars and the like), scores of plastic buildings and literally hundreds of trees and bushes. I carefully painted the hills, buildings and other scenery to be as lifelike as possible, and even added such finishing touches as telephone poles, mailboxes and street signs. It was a wonderful, fulfilling hobby for a young boy, and I spent many happy days playing with that setup.

Several years later the inevitable happened. It was time to move to a new house. My parents knew that my model railroad meant a lot to me, so they carefully chose a house with a large basement which I could use for a new setup.

On the day of the move, my dad and I carefully grasped the plywood containing my model railroad. I was on one side of the board, and he was on the other. Together we lifted it up and turned it on its side. This was necessary because we had to fit the thing through the door to get it into the truck.

Much to my dismay, the plaster, which I had so carefully laid down, slid off the board and fell on the floor. It broke into a thousand pieces.

I managed to hide my feelings from everyone. I was devastated. I was crushed. A piece of me died right then. Something that I had worked on and slaved over for years had been destroyed, with no hope of recovery. I looked at the pieces of plaster on the floor, and knew that a piece of my life was gone forever.

I slowly got on my knees and spent the next hour or so sifting through the rubble. I salvaged everything that I could. I saved all of the track, bridging materials, telephone poles, buildings, signs, street lights and everything else that i could find. I threw all of this stuff into a box, where it would remain, unlooked at, for the next twenty years.

I never did rebuild that model railroad. You see, from the moment that we moved to Lake Arrowhead, I knew that it was only a temporary home for me. I knew that I would be moving away as soon as I was able, and I knew that I couldn’t take something as bulky and awkward as a model railroad layout with me.

So the pieces of that old layout were carefully stored away down in the basement, in a large box. They remained undisturbed until I returned to retrieve them in November of 1990. At that time, I had no intention of rebuilding my model railroad. I simply wanted to recover part of my past before it was totally destroyed or damaged beyond repair.

Those pieces, along with some additional, unbuilt models, remain stored in my apartment, waiting for the day when I finally rebuild a new, wonderful model railroad. They’ll remain there until I find the time, money, room and patience to start up that old hobby again.