Page 13 - November December 2016

MY RAILWAY LIFE Nick Prior
I first remember playing with a clockwork Hornby 0-4-0 loco and carriage on the kitchen floor as a child and on my eighth birthday my father, who did nothing by halves, gave me a Basset Lowke 0 Gauge Prince Charles and a carriage. Unfortunately, although he built me a shelf along one wall of my small bedroom I soon tired of just running it back and forth over eight or nine feet. I must however have already developed my modelling tendencies because I tried to modify the loco to a Southern Schools class which ran on the nearby Hastings to Cannon Street railway.
I lost interest in my teens when work and ongoing study followed by marriage intervened. My revival of interest in railway modelling came in 1974 when I was thirty. I was living in Rochester, New York and a neighbour came by and showed me some American HO engines he had acquired from someone down the road who was selling up. He mentioned there were more available and I hot footed down the road. I bought a Rivarossi NYC Hudson and some other locos and I was hooked. I began setting up a layout on the basement floor of our rented house. There were two outlets in Rochester where you could buy railroad models, Two Guys and Scrantoms. The latter was downtown and I made many happy visits during my lunch hours. They had some brass locos which I had never seen before but were out of my price bracket then. Two Guys was a discount store on the strip which had weekly sales and I got the most amazing bargains, a Rivarossi GG1 for $12, diesel locos at $2-3 and freight cars for 50 cents. I made regular weekend visits.
So was born my love of American railroads. It was partly serendipity but also that I was fascinated by the raw power exhibited by American engines due to their massive scale and because they have all the parts visible on the outside. Like Superman they wear their underpants on the outside. While my first American loco was a NYC, I became particularly fascinated by the Pennsylvania Railroad, "the standard railroad of the world", due to its sheer diversity and have
retained that interest, modelling it in HO. After I moved back to England, I made regular visits to the US for the next thirty five years and usually came back with my suitcase heavier than when I went. Several of the brass locos in Scrantoms were geared locos and these intrigued me. This led me to an interest in narrow gauge and then an interest in mountain railways, particularly those in Colorado, and more particularly the Denver & Rio Grande RR. I am especially interested in the history of the narrow gauge railroads in Colorado and enjoy an extensive library built up over the years.
In the late nineties I discovered Large Scale on one of my trips to the US and joined the San Diego Garden Railway Society (which had 600 members) and received lots of helpful advice and support. As well as leading to larger suitcases, this led to my building a narrow gauge Fn3 scale Garden Railway based on Colorado mountain railroading. I operate this during the summer months until mid September when (giant) leaves on the line for 2-3 months mitigate against operation. Interest revives in April/May depending on the weather. One thing you quickly learn about a garden railway is that maintenance is required like the real railways and plants grow and require constant pruning and then of course as mentioned above I get leaves on the line.
I have managed rides on American heritage lines but actually driving trains has been restricted to the UK. For my fiftieth birthday my wife gave me a driving course at Birmingham Railway Museum which I hugely enjoyed. This led to an invitation to fire and drive Flying Scotsman, an experience I will never forget. I have attended many steam events both in the UK and US as well as visiting museums and a few years ago my friend Charlie Hendy and I did a three day driving course at the West Somerset line.
I still have that Basset Lowke Prince Charles but sadly the Hornby loco is no more. I also still have my first American loco, the NYC Hudson (and many more).
...and The Same from Me The Editor
Seeing Nick's article above reminded me of a series many years ago about "how did you get into North American modelling?" So here are my memories - feel free to send in yours!
After starting work I still lived at home with my parents, in Ilford. I'd long ago given up my Triang Rovex train set and had done several years in serious 1/24th Le Mans slot racing.
One sunny Saturday I suggested taking my parents out for an informal tea, and we ended up parking near High Holborn. Strolling along I soon found I was looking in the window of Beatties model railway store. And there in front of my eyes was a small neat model of an 0-6-0 shunter, a Minitrix Pennsy B6. (I didn't know the term "switcher" at that time!)
For some unknown reason, put it down to fate, I wandered into the store and bought the B6, but while at the counter a pile of thin publications caught my eye. They were the "Profile" series, and on top of the pile was "New York Central Hudsons" - it cost 50p.
Well that really did it. Over the next few months an N scale layout grew in my folks' spare bedroom, a Minitrix K4 followed the 0-6-0 and then an early version of Concor's NYC Hudson. The layout ran everything from an ATSF 4-8-4 to second generation diesels. What did I know? Nothing!
Liking NYC so much, and with so little around in N, I learned a bit of kit bashing.
Perhaps the final injection of addictive drug came when a certain
Rod Welch, with whom I'd become pen friends, suggested I join NMRA (Wot's that??) so then I might have a chance of knowing what I was doing.
The rest, as they say, is history. One of the main spurs was acquiring books, such as B&O Power, and the NYC, PRR and C&O equivalent. The C&O got its claws in, and as nothing was available in N I switched to HO. This introduced me to brass, but that's another story.
Another event that furthered my enthusiasm was our first visit to the USA, in 1982. The kids were of an age to fancy seeing Mickey Mouse, so I wrote to the then National magazine, Bulletin, to ask any Florida resident modellers for information on train watching, model stores etc.
To my amazement we were invited to stay with a member for as long as we wished. Stan and Gina Bradley hosted the first week of our holiday, and then presented us with the use of their second car, to go off to Orlando for a few days. I still find that hard to believe - my first introduction to American generosity. He had even had both his cars insured for me to drive while there.
Looking back now some 42 years it still amazes me what a great part of my life the hobby became, visiting places I'd otherwise never have heard of, and people I would never have met. I just wish I'd started 10 years earlier!!
ROUNDHOUSE December 2016
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