Blog

When my husband passed in 2008, I inherited not just his unfinished freight depot but also a problem I suspect many of you share: where on earth do you put a layout when your house wasn't built with one in mind? My workshop now occupies what used to be our dining room, and I've watched friends squee …

When I inherited my late husband's layout back in 2008, I also inherited his scenery budget crisis. He'd spent freely on locomotives and rolling stock but left behind mountains of bare plywood and exactly $47 in the hobby fund. That's when I learned something every art teacher already knows: the bes …

When my husband passed in 2008, I inherited a half-finished HO layout, three boxes of locomotives I couldn't identify, and absolutely no idea what any of it was worth. Sixteen years later, I've become the person friends call when they need to track down an out-of-production New England depot kit or …

When my husband Bill passed in 2008, he left me with a half-finished HO layout and a freight depot kit sitting on the workbench with exactly twelve pieces glued together. I hadn't touched a model train in my life. Thirty-four years of teaching high school art in Worcester had prepared me to critique …

When my husband passed in 2008 and I inherited his half-finished S scale layout, I had no idea what I was getting into. Sixteen years later, I'm still here, still building, and still convinced that S scale at 1:64 hits a sweet spot between the cramped details of HO and the space demands of O gauge. …

When my husband passed in 2008 and I inherited his layout, I inherited something else too: a bin of decoder boxes he never got around to installing. Back then, getting sound into an N scale locomotive felt like trying to paint the Mona Lisa on a grain of rice. The decoders were too big. The speakers …