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 a mix of postwar Lionel and modern O gauge, because he's never understood why collectors treat running their trains like some kind of crime. Tony writes with the directness of someone who's spent decades actually fixing things, and he has little patience for gatekeeping in a hobby that's supposed to be fun. He's the kind of guy who'll tell you exactly which eBay sellers are reliable and which ones to avoid.