About Me

RAILROADING with CHUGMAN

ABOUT ME

I have always loved trains ever since I was a boy. This first picture is one of my favorites. I took it on March 21, 2005 on the BNSF mainline on the east side of Naperville, IL. it looks like the Amtrak California Zephyr Train #5 and this BNSF double-stack train are racing. I have taken a lot of pictures but this is the first time that I have seen two trains coming at me on a double-track mainline at the same time. And I had my camera ready.

My mother's side of the family were all railroad people and worked on the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad. That was bought by the Chicago & Northwestern railroad which was eventually purchased by the Union Pacific. My grandfather was a roadmaster on the C & NW and told me many great stories about the railroad as I was growing up. My uncles Jack and Phil also worked on the railroad all their lives and it was exciting for me to listen to them.

When I was about 5 or 6 years old, I wanted an electric train really bad. My parents couldn't afford to buy me one so my mom had me start saving my allowance so I could buy one. Her and dad said that they would match whatever I could save on my own. It took a long to get enough money saved, but finally I had enough to buy a new Lionel Steam Freight Train set. It had a Pennsylvania Steam Turbine engine and several freight cars. Two of them were operating cars: the automatic milk car and a gondola that dumped coal.

My mom and I built a layout on plywood in the basement that was just a small oval of track with no switches. We made a town in the center of Plasticville buildings and painted streets and lawns and made it look as realistic as we could.

When I got older I wanted to sell my Lionel set and buy an American Flyer S Gauge set, because it had 2 rail track and I thought it looked more like a real railroad. My mom wouldn't let me sell my Lionel though and made me promise to give it to my kids or grandkids if I didn't want it. I still have it displayed in an antique secretary desk of my mother's in my home.

Over the years I have had in addition to that Lionel, an American Flyer set, went into HO for many years and even tried N Gauge for awhile. My career moved us many times and we are now living in our 15th home. I started several layouts but never got any of them done due to moving so often.

Then in 2003, I retired and discovered how exciting 3 Rail O Gauge was with the sound and TMCC command control. By then I was wearing tri-focals and the idea of going back into a larger scale interested me a lot. I also thought that they should be more durable for the grandkids to be around and I wouldn't be so worried that they might break something. And the last attraction was that MTH and others were making more and more scale looking trains, not the toy train look that Lionel used to be.

That did it. Me, my wife and son picked out a K-Line Union Pacific E-8 Passenger Train with TMCC and there was no looking back. I started a fairly large layout and had trains running and was wiring switch machines when we decided to build our retirement home and move one more time.

In the winter of 2008 I started building my dream layout in the basement of our new home. Based on the advice from a number of people, I waited until our basement was completely finished before starting the construction. We now have the basic bench work done and are finalizing the track plan and started to lay track. Follow the construction in the layout photos section.