Blog

Diane Kowalski fell into model railroading sideways-she was working as a wildlife biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife when she started volunteering at the Georgetown Loop Railroad to help with their interpretation programs. One thing led to another, and now she has a garden railway in her back …

Bill Jeffries has been modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad since 1989, when he bought his first Broadway Limited locomotive and realized he had no idea what actual PRR trains looked like in operation. That question sent him down a research rabbit hole that never really ended. By day, he works as an a …

Tony Marchetti grew up in Cicero, Illinois, watching his dad run Lionel trains around the Christmas tree, and he's been hooked on O gauge ever since. He spent 28 years working for the CTA-mostly as a car maintainer at the Skokie Shops-before taking early retirement in 2021. His basement layout runs …

Carol Fitzgerald spent 34 years teaching art at a public high school in Worcester, Massachusetts, which is probably why she can't look at a model railroad structure without mentally grading it. She came to the hobby through her late husband's layout, which she inherited in 2008 along with a half-fin …

Derek Olson got hooked on model trains the way a lot of millennials did-through a grandparent's Christmas layout that he couldn't stop thinking about. Now 33 and working as an electrician in the Twin Cities, he brings a practical problem-solving mindset to the hobby, especially when it comes to DCC …

Pat Nakamura inherited her father's incomplete N scale layout in 2011, and what started as a way to honor his memory turned into a full-blown passion. Her background in landscape architecture gives her a unique perspective on creating realistic miniature scenery, and she's become known in online for …