Model Railroading > "Trains in the Basement"

As a "young boy" , did any of YOU have trains in your house ?

I did !!

KRK

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For part of my youth I didn't have a basement. The house I lived in before that had a basement layout, and the house without a basement had the trains around my bedroom ceiling.

Here is my first "layout". Funny the older I got, and the worse my eye sight became, the smaller the my trains became. From O scale to N scale.

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No basement. This was my train layout back in the 50's. No electric in the house so we had this Shilling train set which was battery operated. Instead of using the 4 D size flashlight battries my Pap rigged up (2) 6 volt dry cell (tall and round) Ray O Vac batteries. Still have the train set to this day and it runs to the max! Also have some of the layout stuff too.............


hev

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Great shot, Ken... haven't seen that one before. Looks like the whole collection (?)

Mark

I had a 5x9 American Flyer S gauge layout in our "basement" in Maryland in the early 1950s. The combination of steel rail and typical Maryland Eastern Shore humidity and high water table didn't make for a very good mix and I don't remember the layout running very well. My dad eventually moved the layout up into the tiny attic, cutting the table legs off to only 18" or so above the floor so the layout would fit under the sloped ceiling. I still have some of the equipment from that old layout.

Bob

Try going from 027 to Ho to N to Z. I guess I am not the only one that likes the smaller units.

Sure did!...upstairs in my 2nd floor bedroom in 1950. The usual Lionel freight oval on a solid board my parents had made...then re-made because it wouldn't fit up the steep stairs and 90 degree turn. One of the longest weeks waiting of my young life! 10 years later, now in high school, we lived in a "brownstone" apartment building, with big laundry room and tubs in the basement. I found an old flat door and set up an HO layout on it...fiber track, rubberband drive engines. I could take the door off the tubs easily enough and lean it against the wall when not messing with it...or when neighbors wanted to do laundry. Used to ditch school and hide out in the basement to work on it.

Then there was the 8x12 garage HO layout in Atlanta in the mid 80's; and the same layout moved to a basement in Glastonbury, CT in the late 80's.

Ah, the joys of a basement! Wish I had one now. My latest HO layout is on a 4x8 table crammed in my home office=our 3rd bedroom!! I work at my desk and computer, while running trains at the same time! How great is that!

Guess I'm still a "young boy", though...with the trains still running.