01/17/09

 Welcome to my addiction! With a sad and sordid tale, I'll try to explain how this happened to me!

My 2nd layout, somewhere around 1975. I was just a young lad of 14, but I was fully afflicted.

In the beginning,

     There were model trains in my parent's basement, and it was good! Well, it was kinda O.K. There was HO Scale Lionel and Varney, which begat Tyco and Mantua, which brought forth Life-Like and Bachman, and it too was good. Then we discovered Athearn, and it was better! I had started down the path of flirting with an addiction known as model railroading disease (Wheelsonrailsitis for you medical types).  

     This happy bliss was soon shattered. By teenage girls, hormones, and a certain 1969 Ford Mustang.

       By the time I had "settled down" to married life, you would think that I was "cured" of the model railroad bug. Not so.

     I came out of remission almost a month after my 1st wife and I had moved into our 1st little "love nest". She came home from work one day to find my old 4 x 8 layout sitting where the dining room table should have been. being the kind soul she was, it stayed for about a month, or at least until the new furniture had arrived. After that, I kept on with a small n-scale layout mounted on a sheet of Styrofoam, kept under the bed. This kept me in touch with the hobby for a few more years.

     In 1989 came Son #1 and a new house, soon followed by Son #2. Now I had a basement! Now the disease really got a hold of me, I was a junkie, using the lamest excuse "It's for the boys" to justify a large purchase to the wife. But all things come to an end, and when the marriage crashed and burned, Everything got packed up and stored at my folks place. Slowly things started to come out of storage and suddenly I came to the realization that I was no longer in remission. Yup, I was back into a full blown case of wheelsonrailsitis again! The worst part was, my "so called" Nurse (fiancé) was actually feeding this frenzy! (Yet another reason to marry her!) For now I have the "bug" firmly under control. We think.

At present,

WMRY1407 on my son Michael's module

     I model the Western Maryland in the 50's, the Maryland Midland from the 1980's until today With a little CSX thrown in on the side.  I control this with an NCE Powerhouse Pro system. Not only is it the same system the FCSME uses, but it's the easiest fully functional system to use, period.

     I am also a member (and former officer) of the Four County Society of Model Engineers. The FCSME is a modular HO model railroad club, loosely based in Central Maryland, which meets round-robin style in members homes and other locations. We have a large layout that is displayed several times a year at the Great Scale Train Shows at Timonium, MD. For More on the FCSME, check out the links on the "Interests" page!

    In addition to my own projects, I also do some custom painting and DCC decoder installs to help supplement my addition to the hobby. Check the photo galleries for some examples. If you have any questions about a project or how I did something, drop me an email at        karlthecat@kjbond.com. As a tease to the spambots, remember to put out "the cat" before you send mail.  

     As for now, I think we have got this "infection" under control, as least we can live with it as it is. Check back from time to time, as I have quite a few more things I want to do here, but for now, I need to call my, hehehe, NURSE!!!!