Hello all-
I'm new to this forum, and wanted to give a little background of myself.
I'm 62 and a Linux Systems Administrator (a professional geek!) @ a major credit card's Cyber division. I work 12 hr shifts, but split as 5 days 1 week, then 2 days the next alternating (I get 3 "weekends" over the 14 days). ATM I'm on the night-shift a few more months, but this gives me a LOT of free time while the family sleeps, to work on my trainroom-to-be this winter.
My dad bought a big Lionel O-Gauge lot at an auction before I was born, knowing they wanted kids. Unfortunately for the trains, at the age of 8 or so, with my curiosity of "How" the action-cars worked, at-the-time I was only mechanically inclined in the dissassembly area, so many cars were "lost". As a teen with a job, I embarked on replacing items from the famous "Trainland" on the Long Island South shore. I had about 120 sq-ft on 3 1/2 boards setup in my parents house as a teen, and friends loved to come over to see them.
THEN, I moved to Colorado, and the trains remained in storage. I couldn't afford to have a train room in my 1st house, but getting one was a requirement for the 2nd when we upgraded. But it became a giant closet for 12 years.
NOW since I have extra days off, the room (11x11.5; 11x9'sh ft usable, leaving an aisle) is cleared and the carpet vacuumed. I have all sorts of ideas of how to build-out this space. I'm only going to do it once, and plan to do it right. My college son is still home from (SUNY Buffalo), so I'll have his muscles for about 2 weeks. After vacuuming, he asked to see the trains, so I opened a box, the cars were wrapped in "May 1981" newspaper, and the 3482 Milk car was the 1st to be unwrapped. Not opening more or we'll fill the floor, LOL!
Access to a crawl-space door 40 inches off the floor requires access down the middle of the space's uninterrupted 11' wall.
I'm not really "into" landscaping/scenery, but I'll paint the boards (some green/brown Homasote (over 15/32 OSB/Ply), and have some buildings too. I'll put a background up at some point. I'll try to take pictures along the way, but already missed the room's "Before" picture...
I've been "lurking" for a couple of weeks, reading recent posts. I've seen some really good threads (like "Making the Best of What We Have"), and I'm looking forward to participating when I have something useful to submit/reply.
-Lewis (A.K.A. ToyFreak)
