Page 6 - NMRA Roundhouse May-June 2019

My Model Railroading Journey
Lex Parker MMR #300 Part 1
Photos and models by Lex Parker MMR
COVER ARTICLE
Model railroading is an art form and the joy is in the journey, not the arrival as I continue to add layers to the layout
As a child growing up in South you had to build everything and so I pur-
Africa, Egypt and England,
I always had a passion for trains as a result of my father
working as an engineer on the South African railways. When I eventually moved to Canada in 1956, I modelled Canadian National, Canadian Pacific and the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo in HO. Everything I had was out of the box
but I enjoyed scenery the most. Even- tually I was inspired by John Allan and progressed into weathering equipment, something not done by most modellers of the time. However, I soon found that I was modelling the same as everyone else in my group and area and so there was nothing different to share.
How I got into On3
Then one day in the 1970s on a fan trip on the Cass Scenic Railway in West Vir- ginia, a friend suggested I look into nar- row gauge and specifically the D&RGW. Well that caught my attention as I had no knowledge of either. Only problem was that American models and narrow gauge equipment were not available in
First Layout
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Canada as there was little call for it, so
I looked a little further into it and fell
in love with the uniqueness of it all. As
it turned out, I met up with a modeller from Toronto who had been modelling the RGS in On3. He had made many trips to Colorado studying the railroad well back into the 1940s. I was captured by the uniqueness of the equipment and the era and started looking for models. Soon after, I attended the National Nar- row Gauge Convention in Denver where I befriended many other modellers. My wife and I vacationed in the area visiting both Durango and Chama. My interest was captured by Chama’s intimacy as
it was a small community still in a time warp of the 30s and 40s. The decision was made to model Chama in that period. I travelled on the fan trips and photographed as much as I could. As there were no out-of-the-box models,
chased several rolling stock kits, mostly Tomalco. That’s pretty much how I got into scratch building. As for locomotives, there were only brass ones and since they were pricey, my inventory was slow to grow. I started to weather locomo- tives and rolling stock for others which helped pay for my hobby.
My first layout
As it happened, I built a new house in 1980 and had a nice large basement of which half would be dedicated to my model railroad. This was a point-to-point railroad from Chama to Pagosa Springs with two islands to maximize the track. Chama and Pagosa Springs were only 8ft long each with a connection of meander- ing track through Rock Tunnel, a wye to turn trains and an exit to Black Canyon. Chama consisted of the basic scratch built structures such as the coaling tower, sand house, water tank, roundhouse and turntable. Operation was limited other than out and back, but that represented my interest: modelling and simple running. To me, it was all in the details.
Second Layout