It’s an unusually dreary day here in Arizona as I write this; we’re getting the remnants of the storms that have been ravishing California for a bit, and while I welcome the temporary shift from bright, sunny days to gray skies and drizzle, I find myself already looking forward to when the sun will appear once more. More days than I care to remember in Maine were like this — days when the biting wind and driving rain would force you inside, helplessly watching the grass in the yard grow ever taller. Obviously such weather is an awesome excuse to pick up a good book and settle in next to a flickering fire with a cup of coffee close at hand; I might do that later today myself after I’ve finished writing another chapter in Buried — or I might binge a few movies this afternoon.
So many choices.
Rainy weather was also a marvelous excuse for me to sneak off to the basement with my father to work on our model railroad empire; I’ve talked about my time spent among miniature steam engines before, but on days like today, memories of puttering along laying track or chasing an electrical short always bubble to the top. I still joke with my father that his work is never done on his layout(s); each time I visit I find that the current iteration has undergone extensive renovations, including often subtle changes to the electronics underpinning everything.
We unfortunately don’t have basements here in Arizona — well, that’s not entirely true, but they are exceedingly rare, and definitely not present in the corner I live in. That’s made it quite hard for me to find space to indulge in that particular hobby; in our first house, my wife was rather open to the small N-scale layout I was building sitting in a corner of our living room, which was great until we added a cat to the mix. I corrected that in our second house by adding what the builder called a “hobby room” behind the kitchen; essentially we took a piece out of the garage to extend the laundry area, and it was absolute perfection. I made pretty decent progress on that same N-scale layout in that space, including crafting the mountains and rivers the track wound through.
Situations change, though, and we moved once again, this time to an older house that didn’t have such appointments. For a long time, the N-scale layout sat in our master bedroom, but it wasn’t really the right spot for that kind of activity. I mean, who wants to try and sleep next to freshly painted rocks? I knew I didn’t, and I was reasonably sure my long suffering wife was of the same opinion. The longer it sat there in the corner, the more I realized I needed to do something different — and then made the huge mistake of donating the layout (sans track and rolling stock) to a fundraising yardsale.
It was the right decision at the time, and still is, but when the pandemic hit I realized I missed even the opportunity of re-creating those calm, peaceful moments I had working in the basement with my father. I shifted into other ways to do that, of course; between my writing and putting together plastic models of my favorite science fiction shows, there is enough of an outlet for me to decompress from the stresses of the day. But I can’t deny that I miss seeing my tiny trains go up and down the mountains I built, and through the small town that never quite got completed.
I’ve tinkered with upscaling to the trains that could run in my backyard; it’s nearly big enough to house the layout I’ve designed in my head, but would require some significant changes to our landscaping to accomplish. I’ve also tried being a virtual model railroader, creating my fictional towns and routes in clever software that can give you the perspective of an engineer driving the train, but it’s not quite the same. So, for now, I’m down to pulling out my Christmas train each December and enjoying watching it chugging around in circles beneath my tree.
This is an infectious hobby, though. My friend in California — the swim coach that helps ensure Sean and Vasily are doing appropriate workouts in the pool — has his own fond memories of trains beneath the Christmas tree. That’s led to the pair of us trekking to a hobby store in Southern California that specializes in model railroading whenever we get the chance; for the last two years, he’s come close to adding a small train to his Christmas display he builds on a piano each year, or to upgrading the train around his tree to something not controlled by batteries. I thought he’d tipped over the edge this past year, actually, but reason prevailed (and the physics of their condo). I find it funny, though, that I tend to be the one who buys items whenever we visit; me, the guy who has no space at all to do anything.
Then again, you can never have too many BNSF box cars… right?
I know writing has moved beyond being a hobby for me at this point, so I wonder if I my wife would mind me taking a part of the garage for the layout? I don’t know where we’d park the car — our HOA has some strict rules surround that — but the thought of what I could do in that space is somewhat intoxicating. On the other hand, maybe we don’t need the dining room any longer…