The Beginnings

When I was in my early teens, I used some saved money to buy myself a model railroad. The scale was TT (1:120), a scale that was popular in East Germany and still is in Eastern Europe, but has niche status pretty much elsewhere.

I had a decent amount of track material, some rolling stock and even a few signals and such. However, I lacked the space and the money to do anything meaningful with it. So it all ended up in boxes and eventually got sold.

Fast-forward a few decades, when my wife decided to get me started on the hobby again for my round birthday. We had been talking about building a model railway as a long-term project (which it realistically always is). She splurged a bit, and after some consideration, I ended up with a Hornby DCC starter train set, an additional Loco and extra track material. We set aside the spare room, which isn't huge, but big enough to house a beginner-sized layout. At first, I played around with the stuff on two old office desks, but the time soon came where that wouldn't do.

So here we are, and in this blog I will, over time, write about all kinds of experiences and thoughts I've had while tinkering with model railways. If you'd like to come along for the ride, be my guest.

You should also read:

Project Pendolino: Beginnings

Say wat you want about my impulse control - or lack thereof: some opportunities are just too good to walk past. Certain models fall under that category, especially when the price is attractive.

The New Train Room: Beginnings

It was always sort of planned that at some point, our model trains would move elsewhere. The room we used until now is quite small, and while we managed to maximise space usage in it, actually working in there was not a lot of fun. There was no room for a proper workbench, and generally things were quite cramped. We wanted the room freed up for other purposes, too.