I've been playing with trains since I was 6 or 7, that was in the mid 50's. I switched over to building trains and layouts in the mid 60's when I switched over to N scale from HO. The Shoshoni Valley got it's start then with a 5x9 island layout in my bedroom. By the end of HS I had swapped again to HOn3. That lasted until I graduated HS and left home. I dabbled in HOn3 until shortly after I got married the 1st time and my now ex wife bought me a HO brass loco for Christmas instead of the HOn3 model I pointed out to her.

It has been almost 2 1/2 years since I have had a MR. Tore down the last one when we put our old house up for sale because we needed to get a smaller one. A bit of modeling history.