Life is a journey, enjoy the train ride!

Richard became fascinated with trains at a young age. His father would take him to a nearby train station to watch the locomotives ride along the tracks. Richard was amazed at the sounds, lights and smells that would come from these powerful machines.

For years, Richard was wishing they had a basement so that he could design, build, and enjoy a model railroad. Eventually, during the lockdown of the Covid Pandemic, he had the bright idea to use their attic as a space to build his railroad!  The first step was to floor the attic with ¾” plywood.  This made a solid and large platform for laying track and complementary scenery. 

One of the biggest challenges was finding ways to hide all the wiring under the floor.  Between the track power, switch control, crossing and block signals, and lighting, there is a lot of wiring!  Another challenge was designing the layout so that there were areas to walk or crawl to get access to the entire layout.  Most model railroads are built on an elevated table, but in an attic, there isn’t sufficient headroom for that. 

Richard mostly works on the layout during the winter months, as it can get quite warm in the attic during the summer.  Fortunately, they live in San Clemente, where the weather tends to be significantly cooler than in the rest of Orange County.

Technology for today’s model railroads is quite advanced from what it was when Richard received his first Lionel electric train for Christmas in 1950.  Engines are computer controlled via a radio signal sent through the track.  They can run at very precise speeds that mimic the operation of a full-size engine.  They have a great sound system which emulates the actual sounds made by a real railroad engine, including engine sounds, horn or whistle, brakes, fueling, and communication with the dispatchers. 

Richard has eight Lionel Legacy engines, some configured as multiple-engine trains as in the picture above.  All the trains can be controlled by a single iPhone running a special Lionel App.  Three trains can run simultaneously on the layout at any one time.  His one passenger train is pulled by a steam engine that smokes, puffs, chugs, and whistles just like a steam engine from the early days of train travel

The layout is fairly large with about 250’ of O-Gauge track and 18 switches. The entire track layout is run on a single iPad which controls all the switches, multiple-switch routes, and block power for the sidings. The track layout is complex enough to make running the trains fun and interesting.

Scenery includes many buildings, including two train stations, a farmhouse and barn, a country store, a diner, a Starbucks, a church, a car dealership, three industrial buildings, a city square, and a few railroad buildings. All are lighted. There are three operating oil derricks, two water towers, and a cell tower.  The track layout includes four tunnels, such as those above.

Richard has been working on his model railroad since October, 2020, and it is still a work in progress. The track work is complete and fully operational. Most of the remaining work involves scenery, and that effort could continue for quite a while.

Richard is a retired VP of Engineering from the computer industry and loves to keep the technical side of his brain active.  This hobby has been a fabulous means to do that in a creative and enjoyable way.

Richard and Nancy hope to never dismantle the train set. They hope the next generation of train lovers will enjoy it as much as they have!

Thank you, Richard and Nancy, for showing us how getting on board with hobbies can be so fun and rewarding! We truly admire the time, dedication, patience, and intelligence put into building out this train model!

Richard and Nancy

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