Day 1.
Today, I'm starting a blog to document my journey in model railroading.
This hobby literally saved my life during the covid-19 pandemic lockdown.
My mother was in the hospital for a litany of issues she was having, my father was just admitted to a nursing home due to his progressively poor condition due to many years of parkinson's disease. We had just moved, 4 months earlier, from my lifelong home in Pittsford, NY to a more feasible home for my parents to take care of up in Webster, and I found myself an apartment just outside of Fairport. So much had changed, I was having issues with my anxiety, the world had shut down, and I found myself utterly, and completely, alone. Except for my dog, Louie, staying at my moms house for the duration.
During this time, we still hadn't sold the old house. We needed to get it sold though, and when I could muster up the ambition, I would make the drive down to the empty old house to pack things up and haul it back up to Webster in the peace and dark of night.
This is where trains come in.
I was having trouble letting things go in these circumstances, my mom had thrown so many things away and that included my woodland scenics scenic ridge N-scale model railroad I had built when i was a kid.
That really stung, because she did it without me knowing.
I still had my trains and a circle of bachmann ez-track, so I took that back to my apartment, and set it up.
Over the last, probably, 5 years, I have been known to flirt with modeling once again, by watching youtube videos of model railroads, but I never really ended up pulling the trigger. Until one day when I was PARTICULARLY bored.
I found a YouTube channel, the Union Pacific Railway, Geneva Subdivision. Hosted by Darrell Cruz. He had such a relaxing way of demonstrating and parsing out his layout in his videos.
At this time, I was on what I, personally, consider "loose lockdown" where the world had started to reopen, but between my mom returning back to home, my anxiety, and generally not ready to have my ass handed to me by my retail job yet. I hadn't yet returned to work. I passed the time each day by waking up late, watching youtube, ordering some food on grubhub, and walking the dog, at the end of the day, I would always go into the village of Fairport, where I discovered a new viewing platform built by the local rotary chapter, for people to watch the trains on the CSX Rochester Subdivision go by.
Every night, I would stand there, listening to my favorite podcasts, and taking in the night, waiting for a train to pass, then I would return home and head to bed.
As I got more obsessed with the Union Pacific Railway, Geneva Subdivision, I was drawn to one video, a video he made of local operations, involving an SD40-2 in BNSF colorway, and between this, and all the pandemic relief money in my pocket, I decided "what the hell" and ordered myself a loop of KATO unitrack and called up Despatch Junction for the first time in a decade and a half.
When I called, I met Frank, who is still a friend of mine today, he said he had an sd40-2 at home he could sell me and I should come by on Friday. I still had not been to a store since lockdown, so this would be interesting.
When I got there, I got a lay of the land, since the store had burned down and been rebuilt since I had last visited, and had a delightful afternoon hanging out and talking shop with the folks at the shop.
I had arrived.
With my other hobbies in music, I had been recently left unfulfilled with the lack of interpersonal connection, not able to play shows, hang out with my buddies, anything.
I found a hobby just for me.
The hobby of model railroading is incredibly unique. It has always stayed ahead of the curve in relation to the real world prototypes, with all the incredible automation and ingenuity of operations I have seen in the model world.
This hobby has a very specific characteristic that I can appreciate. I refer to this characteristic as being an "inward facing" hobby.
What do I mean by this?
When i think of disciplines (a better name than hobby), I think of how the hobby relates to those involved. When i was in music, for instance, that was an outward facing hobby due to certain components. The fact that music is a form of entertainment is huge, in that practice and production is done purely for the consumption of others, even though I do have fun playing music at home, playing music for others is where the magic happens.
In model railroading, it really is quite different.
I can take whatever i want from this hobby whenever I want, and its never intended to be consumed by anyone but myself.
I can ADD outward facing components, and I have as I have now been vaccinated and back to work. I have joined the Genesee and Ontario Model-N-Gineers, a local N-Scale model railway club I had visited as a kid.
This club letting me come by as a child to run trains at their club was the highlight of my childhood, and was the biggest contribution to me adjusting to moving to Rochester suddenly from New Jersey at 7 years old, the memories of coming to the club when they rented a storefront at the Irendequoit mall, and running trains, and the drive with my dad up from Pittsford listening to his cds of bruce springsteen, paul simon, santana, and bob segar with him were the best memories I have ever had with my dad.
I hope as time goes by, I can spread this joy to others, and hopefully find more joy for myself as I engulf myself in this hobby further.
-Rob B.
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