Where the Iron Horse meets the Carriage Horse

Early Layouts Sunrise Layout Paulden Layout Railfanning

Trains
 

I guess every train fan has his own story about what got him interested in real or model trains.  In my case, it must have been inbred.  That was the only explanation I received was from my father, who was just as perplexed as I.   He had no interest in trains at all.  He said that as a six month old baby, he would take me with him to pick up my grandfather at the Long Island railroad station for his weekly trip.  At first I was terrified, but soon began to long for those trips to see the big, black smoking steamer.  Who knows?  But history shows that early photos have me with toy trains from an early age. Somehow Lionel publications from the mid '40s have been in my possession since youth.  There is even a vague memory of my father trying - unsuccessfully - to build a Lionel wartime paper train.  So by the time I was 6 or 7, I was clamoring for Santa to bring me an electric train.  At first he would only bring Marx windups, but he relented and at Christmas just after turning nine, a Lionel steam freight set arrived.  You can probably guess the rest!

In those days I was already following model magazines' advice to make my Lionel's "more real looking" and ended up destroying whatever future collector value they could obtain by repainting and relettering all my trains.  But that introduced me to building trains, buildings, scenery, etc.  And that, too, has become a large part of my enjoyment of the hobby.

Layout building started within a year or two, although high school years saw a diminished interest, as with most teenage boys.  During college years, I followed all the magazine's advice and switched to HO gauge trains and joined a Tucson model club, then forming.  I also enjoyed photographing models as well as real trains almost from the beginning of my train interest.  Fortunately, that has resulted in a fairly complete record of models, layouts and railfanning.

Real trains were just as interesting to this kid, even in his youth.  My J.C. Higgens bicycle allowed trips to the Douglas train station, so most weekends involved at least one trip to photograph the great steamers still passing through Douglas. Brand new diesels were just appearing and to me were also fascinating, so many photographs were of them.  Ironically, they too are all now gone and are now historic in their own right.  That side of  train interest continues to this day so we do railfanning trips with the local club fellows, Amtrak trips with Mary Jane and even did a part time job as a Brakeman for the Grand Canyon Railroad.

Following college, taking a job in Toledo, Ohio and getting married, trains still crept in.  In our first rental house an HO layout quickly took shape, and  I joined the local National Model Railroad Association chapter.  More layouts followed as we moved to our own house and again to a larger one.  An epiphany occurred shortly before leaving Toledo for Arizona.  I found I was having more fun building our Lionel Christmas layouts and searching for old Lionels than I was having with my then current N gauge layout.  The N gauge layout disappeared and a first adult era Lionel was started.  At that time I joined the Train Collectors Association and began a involvement with the toy train side of the hobby.  That set the pattern, where new, usually larger and hopefully greater Lionel layouts followed.

Railroad clubs and groups have always been very important to me.  They have allowed me to meet what became some of my best friends while sharing the hobby from different and expanded horizons. 

Through our local divisions of the Train Collectors Association and Toy Train Operating Society, we have been involved in building train modules for public display, operating toy train shows for the public, publishing club newsletters and organizing activities. It even led to a secondary avocation - auctioneering for both train and horse groups. 

Our move to Paulden expanded those associations to include our local Prescott area model railroad club and the local chapter of the National Railroad Historical Society.  Once again, they added new opportunities for railfanning, photography and enjoying the companionship of fellows almost as nuts about trains as me.

For more detail on all of these activities, photos and stories about old and current Paulden layouts, just click on the links in the left hand column.

LINKS

Here are some links to some local model club member's websites, our local train clubs, and to Charles Wilber for allowing the use of  his fantastic Lionel train graphics Lionel Rules.

Stan Cedarfleaf     Lorne Noyes     Desert Division, Train Collectors Association

Central Arizona Model Railroad Club

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Peter & Mary Jane Atonna
Paulden, Arizona