A big thanks to John Wubbel for pointing me to the O Scale Forum and thanks for having me! I look forward to learning lots and sharing with members of this forum!
I am a long time model railroader having got started in the 1960s when my twin brother and I inherited our eldest brother's Lionel O Scale trains. As a child I had Marx S Scale trains but eventually graduated to HO scale. My brother and I - with our Dad's help - built a 4x16 foot HO Scale layout that we ran for many years. I moved away from the hobby in my teens and was away from the hobby for many years. Getting married and buying a house got me back into model railroading! I had to do something with that basement!
I moved into O Scale in the late 1990s. I started building an around the wall switching layout based on the Belt Railway of Chicago but never completed the benchwork before we moved to a larger basement! I started building my O Scale dream layout based on John Armstrong's Pocahontas Junction track plan in a 1954 issue of Model Railroader (I could be mistaken on the year of that issue!). A move from Canada to the United States in 2014 ended that layout, but I am glad to say I did get trains running! My O Scale stuff (and an extensive collection of HO Scale Belt Railway of Chicago equipment) moved with me but stayed in boxes. This past January I decided to start modelling again and to build a small switching layout. My current house lacks a basement, but I figured a small layout is better than no layout.
I have been doodling track plans based upon John Armstrong's Pratt Street Manufacturers' Railway plan in the May 1954 issue of MR. I am far from finished my doodling, so in the interim I have been collecting more rolling stock and have started building a TR2/TR3 cow and calf unit based on All Nation's NW2. I am also building the Rock Products Bunker from the Oct-Nov-Dec 1954 issues of MR. In the future I will be building the Leming Compressed Gas Factory from the March 1971 MR. I look forward to sharing my track planning and modelling with members of the forum!
Cheers!
Gord Clarry