03/05/07

11/27/06

Who are We?                                                   

Warning—this section is somewhat maudlin and sentimental, read at your own risk

Our web site isn’t really about a model railroad.  It’s about the fun of a father and son project that happens to be a model railroad.  Over time, I expect him to develop different interests (hopefully more than just “Sponge Bob, Square Pants”), but we’ll always have this little layout.

 In any event, I work in the financial services industry in a managerial role.  My academic training is in economics, applied mathematics and classical history.  In other words, I’m a Geek, with a capital “G”, to be sure.  You’ll notice that I don’t use our names in the web site—I do the “anonymity thing” not because I’m overly important, I do it because we’ve had security problems in the past that I would prefer not to repeat.  My apologies if my caution seems inhospitable.

I am also very fortunate to be married to a wonderful and patient woman who puts up with me “playing with trains”.  My wife is a medical academic who is on the faculty of a local university.  Perhaps the best way to describe the plight of my wife is to use a quote from her when describing a recent trip to Disney World “You know, I left Maryland with one son and I arrived in Orlando with two”.

We live in Howard County, Maryland which is both a wonderful place to reside in and pretty close to model railroad heaven, given all the specialty stores nearby (please see our links page).  The area also has a wealth of real rail road history, especially the B&O Train Museum.  If you haven’t been to the B&O you should consider going, the recently restored roundhouse is spectacular. 

My wife and I have one son, who has always loved trains and that interest seems to still be strong at age 11, although it does compete with an ever increasing array of other pursuits that range (in my opinion) from the cool (Lego Robotics, model rockets, computers / the web) to the annoying (video games, and the afore mentioned Mr. Square Trousers).  In fact this web site was his idea and it’s a neat way to merge one interest with another. 

My son and I have found model railroading to be a very broad activity as it combines basic carpentry and electrical wiring with artistic expression and planning.  It really is almost the perfect hobby to teach problem solving skills to a young person and you get to run trains around—that’s just cool.

Our initial approach to the layout was not “prototypical” in that, while we modeled the Baltimore & Ohio, we didn't model either a specific time period or place.  We have recently made a decision to model a specific period of time.  We selected a WWII theme, and will be modeling the late summer, early fall of 1994.  Why?   My son has a burgeoning interest in history and I've always liked modeling armored vehicles so why not find a way to merge those interests into the layout?  You'll see this theme develop over time.  

I will be honest, you’ll find other layouts on the web that have much higher quality modeling than ours (several really exceptional ones are highlighted on the links page).  Our finished product may never look like the layouts that are featured in the magazines.  But as the days pass, we get a little better in execution, a bit bolder in conception, and more confident in our capabilities.  We also continue to spend time together.

Isn’t that the point of the whole exercise?

Comments? Please Email us at:

Bosco@clarksville-balt-and-ohio.com