Railroad Engineer

Jan

8th

2008

I suppose in a very general sense, there are two types of engineers…those who work in the engineering field and those who “drive trains”. I’m both.

My dad grew up with a train set, and he in turn built one for me when I was young. It was a massive thing…two sheets of plywood with a hole in the middle for access that took over my room. As I recall, I played with it for a while, but the fact it was an old set and required a lot of cleaning turned it into a dust collector after a while. I’m not sure where it is now.

My three year old nephew loves trains, and after my boy was born, I decided to begin building a train for them. I built the board complete with styrofoam inserts (for elevation changes), mountains, water, and a cool hoisting system to raise it above the truck in the garage when I’m not working on it or playing with it.

Both my son and my nephew are still too young to play with the set…it’s not as “sturdy” as their Thomas the Tank toys. That’s good, because I’ve still got some work to do on it, and I’m rather selfish about it as well…once I get it built, I’ll probably tear it down and rebuild it with them.