My Childhood Train Layouts

By the time I was six years old, I shadowed my dad as he did various projects around the house, soaking up how to do things and how to use tools, from small repairs to significant remodeling projects. He maintained a work shop in our basement, well-stocked with both materials and tools. I loved to tinker with things there and often left his area in a big mess. I remember many stern scoldings. At some point, he made me a small but usable work bench and gave me some basic tools I could call my own.

By the time I was about ten I knew I wanted to use my newly acquired skills to make a train layout for my American Flyer train; one that didn’t have to be picked up and put away each time I played with it. With some pleading, I was allotted a space for a small layout in the basement family room. The layout was built from a scrap piece of ¼-in plywood the size of a single bed, left over from my dad dismantling a bunk bed. The size of the plywood limited the track arrangement to an oval with an inside siding. It wasn’t sturdy, because there was no frame. Instead I supported it with four wooden stools from our basement bar. To the track I added some home-made wooden ties, and I also mixed sawdust and flour-glue to create ‘ballast.’ It was rudimentary, but to my ten-year-old eyes, it was many steps up in realism from the bare track. I also fashioned a single street light utilizing a small light bulb, of which I was quite proud. Christmases and birthdays resulted in a Plasticville police station and a fire station that I added to the layout. Then came a Plasticville signal bridge that straddled the track. These were gifts from my sister, purchases from the local dime store.

 

I painted roads on the plywood, and created a papier-mâché tunnel that I positioned in a far corner. Operation was limited by having only four cars,  although my push button uncoupler made train activity more interesting. My layout was lighted by a single bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. I thought it was swell, though in hindsight I was working in dark shadows!

I wanted to add more rolling stock and accessories to my railroad empire, but there were two problems that stymied me; a place to buy them, and money with which to buy them. To afford what I hoped to buy I saved the money I made from mowing lawns, and later on delivering the local newspaper, The Ashland Daily Tidings.

In the 1950s, in the stores in my little hometown, American Flyer cars and accessories were non-existent. The nearest hobby shop was 12 miles away, in Medford, Oregon. When I was finally able to wrangle a ride to that store I found it had no American Flyer items. It seemed American Flyer trains were not as popular as Lionel, and they were sold mostly at Christmas time as train sets. I felt stuck. However, once I got a ride to the hobby shop, I couldn’t waste the trip. In desperation, I purchased several HObbyline HO car kits. These kits were inexpensive, so they fit my budget, but I found out their quality was low, with poor wheel sets and couplers. They did open my eyes to the smaller scale.

The American Flyer layout was eventually dismantled, and when I was about 12 I started a second layout, in HO scale. This time I began with a table supported by a frame. My dad obligingly hauled a 4 x 8 ft sheet of wall board home for me from the lumber yard during his lunch hour. I purchased the materials for the frame on a pay-as-I-could basis, hauling the lumber home balanced on my bicycle, walking the bike up the steep hill to home.

Over time I wrangled more rides to the hobby shop in Medford to buy track and other supplies. I used Atlas flex track, with brass rail and fiber tie strips, along with cork ballast strips. I eventually acquired an Athearn F7 A-unit locomotive with Hi-F drive (with a rubber band drive belt), along with a couple of additional freight cars.

The Hi-F locomotives were the economy models. Geared drive locomotives were more desirable, but cost more than I could afford. The Hi-F models ran extremely FAST, making them easy to run off the track on curves, and were not very realistic in operation. 

This layout was only slightly more sophisticated than the first. It was an oval with a couple of sidings, and it included some grades. I added a few bits of landscaping too. The track roadbed was built utilizing scraps of lumber I found at home. Illumination continued to be a single bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. As basic as it was, building this layout did increase my range of relevant skills and provided me with new model train experiences and enjoyment. I had many fun hours of running my lone locomotive and few cars around that layout.

Junior high and high school studies and activities gradually took the place of spending time on an active model railroad, and my second set-up was eventually retired and the items were stored away. However, I kept my interest in the hobby alive with a steady stream of model train magazines and mental plans for future great railroads. I do regret that no photos were taken of my first two layouts. I have to rely on my fond memories.