Carlos Perea
New Member
Hi, all. I just joined MRF a few hours ago, and thought I should post a topic introducing myself to the community. I'm a high school freshman living in the Miami suburb of Miami Lakes, whose interest in railroading was just revived. I've had several train sets in the past, simply track, locomotives, and rolling stock (nothing like the wonderful and intricate creations I see here), but since I was a lot younger than the intended age for them, let's just say that they haven't held their value well.
I started out with some of those HO sets avaliable in the aisles of Toys 'R' Us or a similar train store (with horn-hook couplers and all), but I went on steadily losing the components until there wasn't very much left of anything. Visiting a hobby shop that's since closed to purchase some model airplanes, I saw a display of Walthers Amtrak Superliners and thought it'd be fun to get back into model RR-ing, and it was. I ran my Walthers F40 and a few cars on a little loop of track, and eventually purchased an Athearn P42 to complement it. I also had a strong passion for aviation (and I still have it, and have decided that it's the field that I'd like to enter upon graduating from college), which eventually overcame my interest in model trains, and that Amtrak train and track were eventually stored in a cabinet. For Christmas in 2001, I decided to get back in to model railroading, and purchased a Kato Unitrack starter set, an FEC GP40, and some intermodal cars and containers in N scale. Something that really amazed me about N scale was that I was able to store the entire train set in my carry-on when my family and I went on a vacation to Europe (shamelessly taking advantage of extremely reduced airfares after 9/11, I must add
), and I managed to run it in the cramped confines of a European hotel room. I would still take it out every now and then, and added another Unitrack starter set (this time the K2 turnout set), and a pair of E8s and passenger cars in FEC colours for my twelfth birthday. There was a problem of sort where the cars would either derail or uncouple, or both, as they crossed the turns, but it was traced to a coupler problem or something similar, and I think I bought replacement couplers that I said I'd install, but never got around to. Eventually, it, too, would wind up in storage.
I was cleaning out those old cabinets a few days ago when I found what was left of some of these train sets. Fortunately, I'd kept the boxes intact of about half of the rolling stock and locomotives I had left, and I'd taken care of my latest acquisitions, so they kept some if not all of their value. Seeking to raise money, I've decided to eBay them through my father's eBay account. It may seem odd that I say that I like model railroading yet am selling off most of what I have left, but as I cleaned out those cabinets, I had an idea for an HO scale layout to build someday in the future. I've already chosen a location, era, and what type of operations I'd like to have on it. I'm already in the process of constructing a model airport to appease my aviation side, so I'll have to save up for quite a while if I'm to add a model train layout. Fortunately, I can get part-time jobs now (I'm currently working as a production assistant), and with the start from selling off some of my old model railroading equipment, I can make the layout a possibility in about two years or so.
I was a member of this forum before, but stopped visiting and presumably had my account deleted for inactivity. I posted some photos of a loop of track I'd assembled under my bed, but I've since moved to a different house (in the same town, though), and it's mostly parts from that train set that I'll be selling off. Anyway, that's just a little bit about me, and from my time here a year ago or so, I know that this is a very friendly community that's always willing to give a pointer or to, and it's one that I'm happy to be a part of again.
I started out with some of those HO sets avaliable in the aisles of Toys 'R' Us or a similar train store (with horn-hook couplers and all), but I went on steadily losing the components until there wasn't very much left of anything. Visiting a hobby shop that's since closed to purchase some model airplanes, I saw a display of Walthers Amtrak Superliners and thought it'd be fun to get back into model RR-ing, and it was. I ran my Walthers F40 and a few cars on a little loop of track, and eventually purchased an Athearn P42 to complement it. I also had a strong passion for aviation (and I still have it, and have decided that it's the field that I'd like to enter upon graduating from college), which eventually overcame my interest in model trains, and that Amtrak train and track were eventually stored in a cabinet. For Christmas in 2001, I decided to get back in to model railroading, and purchased a Kato Unitrack starter set, an FEC GP40, and some intermodal cars and containers in N scale. Something that really amazed me about N scale was that I was able to store the entire train set in my carry-on when my family and I went on a vacation to Europe (shamelessly taking advantage of extremely reduced airfares after 9/11, I must add
), and I managed to run it in the cramped confines of a European hotel room. I would still take it out every now and then, and added another Unitrack starter set (this time the K2 turnout set), and a pair of E8s and passenger cars in FEC colours for my twelfth birthday. There was a problem of sort where the cars would either derail or uncouple, or both, as they crossed the turns, but it was traced to a coupler problem or something similar, and I think I bought replacement couplers that I said I'd install, but never got around to. Eventually, it, too, would wind up in storage.I was cleaning out those old cabinets a few days ago when I found what was left of some of these train sets. Fortunately, I'd kept the boxes intact of about half of the rolling stock and locomotives I had left, and I'd taken care of my latest acquisitions, so they kept some if not all of their value. Seeking to raise money, I've decided to eBay them through my father's eBay account. It may seem odd that I say that I like model railroading yet am selling off most of what I have left, but as I cleaned out those cabinets, I had an idea for an HO scale layout to build someday in the future. I've already chosen a location, era, and what type of operations I'd like to have on it. I'm already in the process of constructing a model airport to appease my aviation side, so I'll have to save up for quite a while if I'm to add a model train layout. Fortunately, I can get part-time jobs now (I'm currently working as a production assistant), and with the start from selling off some of my old model railroading equipment, I can make the layout a possibility in about two years or so.
I was a member of this forum before, but stopped visiting and presumably had my account deleted for inactivity. I posted some photos of a loop of track I'd assembled under my bed, but I've since moved to a different house (in the same town, though), and it's mostly parts from that train set that I'll be selling off. Anyway, that's just a little bit about me, and from my time here a year ago or so, I know that this is a very friendly community that's always willing to give a pointer or to, and it's one that I'm happy to be a part of again.
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