My godfather-in-law knows a lot about trains. He’s been doing this for years. It has taken over most of the family basement.
He says he’s torn it down and rebuilt it twice. There’s a general idea in mind, but sometimes new models change your plans. The ice factory had to go up front because it was such a fine display. And there’s one bend of mountains that are simply too good to move from where they are.
He had a neighbor out back who also collected trains and there was talk, for a time, of burying a PVC pipe, a tunnel, where they could run through both houses. He was apparently a high roller, a “forget the house, get the trains,” kind of guy. He moved away and sold all of his train material to someone else.
That guy came up because I mentioned you could put some tunnels in this wall here or that wall there and run track into other rooms. But that’s probably not in the cards. His latest expansion has come out from one corner of the basement and into about half of the room, a negotiation. He built a cedar closet for his wife.
Just keep that in mind, he said, “You can go a long way on a cedar closet.”
For Christmas his granddaughter got a watch that has a video camera in it. (Kids these days.) He’s now ready to put that watch on a train car and shoot the town from the miniaturized view.
