strangeseraph
New Member
When I was in high school I got my hands on a circle of N scale track and some trains and a control. I don't remember quite how that came about, I think it was at a garage sale.
I'd always loved trains. When I was a little girl I would always love going out to the train tracks to watch the grain cars pull into the grain elevator of our small farming town, and you could hear the train coming from anywhere you were. We would put pennies on the rails to see them flattened.
I was sad in my teenage years when the train line was finally closed. Shipping trucks took the place of railroad and new roads made transportation by truck easier.
I loved as a child Thomas the Tank Engine, and all those cute wooden block train toys that they have in dentists office to play with. I wanted my own but my mother never bought me trains. I was a girl. I got my little ponies and barbies (which I would invariably use to present characters in my own stories)
When I got that N scale train I didn't know it was N scale, or anything about train models, I just liked trains. I had a circle of track, which I immediately set up on the top of my dresser, and this little train, which would go around in circles.
That got boring quickly. And then the electrical box stopped running properly. Dissappointment.
I was not one to quit so I connected to the internet to find more information. (the Internet was rather new to me then, think Windows 95 and the high school computers being the only place you could connect, or the library, and everything was dial-up.) One my research had told me what my trains were, and everything I could possibly want for information, I was hooked. I started to borrow books from the library, and bought my first copy of model railroad magazine at the only place in our town that sold specialist magazines: the convenience/drug store. I also looked in the phone book for hobby shops and called the nearest hobby shop: about an hour away in Toronto. I talked to the guy who worked there, he sold me some more trains, and I was able to set up a little layout of my own in N scale. I had buildings and tracks, and some painted grass.
But all things pass, and I went to university, and my mom had to go live in the hospital so I put my train, and a whole bunch of my teenage and childhood belongings, out with the yard sale.
I haven't lost my obsession with trains, just my ability to model and set up tracks and run trains. I now live in a one bedroom apartment in the city with my cat (a cat is not a model train's best friend). And my urge to model has returned. I can't set up a layout because I don't have a spare room for it. I'd like to have a model again, one that my cat can't destroy. I thought about N scale again, or even something smaller that I could fit in a small space and could store away when I got to bed.
I also STILL have a fascination for those small wooden train toys and thomas the tank engine.
My dream, however, my great dream, is a complete layout of the Hogwarts Express run from the Harry Potter films. The castle, the small villages, the great sweeping countryside and tall viaducts that the train goes over, and kings cross station, London.
I even collect Harry Potter lego and had plans for running a lego train since they had one for the Harry Potter IP. But I think Lego would be supremely bad with a cat in the house able to chew and swallow the small, easy to remove lego pieces.
Here's an idea. What about EZ-Track? I could lay out some trains on my carpet and pack them away when I'm not using them or when company is over? I can imagine having an HO scale train going from my bedroom to the livingroom and the kitchen that my cat could chase around, wouldn't that be sweet?
Ah dreams. I also dream of visiting Northlandz one day. I'm in Canada, rather far away from there.
And I have to keep myself from buy Thomas the Tank engine toys. Maybe I should give into those urges. But I have no kids, so I don't have that excuse! :O
Anyways, thats me. What do other people on this forum with feisty pets do?
I'd always loved trains. When I was a little girl I would always love going out to the train tracks to watch the grain cars pull into the grain elevator of our small farming town, and you could hear the train coming from anywhere you were. We would put pennies on the rails to see them flattened.
I was sad in my teenage years when the train line was finally closed. Shipping trucks took the place of railroad and new roads made transportation by truck easier.
I loved as a child Thomas the Tank Engine, and all those cute wooden block train toys that they have in dentists office to play with. I wanted my own but my mother never bought me trains. I was a girl. I got my little ponies and barbies (which I would invariably use to present characters in my own stories)
When I got that N scale train I didn't know it was N scale, or anything about train models, I just liked trains. I had a circle of track, which I immediately set up on the top of my dresser, and this little train, which would go around in circles.
That got boring quickly. And then the electrical box stopped running properly. Dissappointment.
I was not one to quit so I connected to the internet to find more information. (the Internet was rather new to me then, think Windows 95 and the high school computers being the only place you could connect, or the library, and everything was dial-up.) One my research had told me what my trains were, and everything I could possibly want for information, I was hooked. I started to borrow books from the library, and bought my first copy of model railroad magazine at the only place in our town that sold specialist magazines: the convenience/drug store. I also looked in the phone book for hobby shops and called the nearest hobby shop: about an hour away in Toronto. I talked to the guy who worked there, he sold me some more trains, and I was able to set up a little layout of my own in N scale. I had buildings and tracks, and some painted grass.
But all things pass, and I went to university, and my mom had to go live in the hospital so I put my train, and a whole bunch of my teenage and childhood belongings, out with the yard sale.
I haven't lost my obsession with trains, just my ability to model and set up tracks and run trains. I now live in a one bedroom apartment in the city with my cat (a cat is not a model train's best friend). And my urge to model has returned. I can't set up a layout because I don't have a spare room for it. I'd like to have a model again, one that my cat can't destroy. I thought about N scale again, or even something smaller that I could fit in a small space and could store away when I got to bed.
I also STILL have a fascination for those small wooden train toys and thomas the tank engine.
My dream, however, my great dream, is a complete layout of the Hogwarts Express run from the Harry Potter films. The castle, the small villages, the great sweeping countryside and tall viaducts that the train goes over, and kings cross station, London.
I even collect Harry Potter lego and had plans for running a lego train since they had one for the Harry Potter IP. But I think Lego would be supremely bad with a cat in the house able to chew and swallow the small, easy to remove lego pieces.
Here's an idea. What about EZ-Track? I could lay out some trains on my carpet and pack them away when I'm not using them or when company is over? I can imagine having an HO scale train going from my bedroom to the livingroom and the kitchen that my cat could chase around, wouldn't that be sweet?
Ah dreams. I also dream of visiting Northlandz one day. I'm in Canada, rather far away from there.
And I have to keep myself from buy Thomas the Tank engine toys. Maybe I should give into those urges. But I have no kids, so I don't have that excuse! :O
Anyways, thats me. What do other people on this forum with feisty pets do?
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