I joined this forum a few days ago, made a couple posts and decided I should pop in and introduce myself. I grew up in the East Bay of Northern California and now live in northwest Montana. My favorite prototype railroads are the Southern Pacific, Western Pacific and Norfolk Southern (I'll explain below). I have no love for the UP LOL. I spent my "youth" chasing the SP in the Martinez area and now find myself chasing trains of the northern Rockies (BNSF and MRL) and researching logging prototypes of NW Montana. I'm a "retired" truck driver and had the opportunity to railfan all across North America, including most of Canada and Alaska while working. This is when I "discovered" the Norfolk Southern. I used to load horse feed in Richmond, IN to haul back to CA and the mill I loaded at was right on the NS mainline. I remember seeing the NS Road Railer trains fly by the mill and fell in love with the simple black paint scheme of the railroads locomotives. So, in addition to my SP and WP model trains, I also own a HO NS Road Railer train comprised of Bowser's NS Road Railer cars and a Kato NS loco. I was a member of the Alameda County Central Railroad Society at the Pleasanton Fair Grounds for over 20 years and am a current member of the PLA/Niles Canyon Railway. My father works in the car shop at the Brightside Yard for the PLA, where he takes part in helping to restore passenger cars. I help him out when I go down to visit him a couple times a year. I've been an "armchair modeler" for about the last 10 years, but have had my interests rekindled since going to a local model RR clubs open house this past weekend. I hope to be able to make worthwhile contributions to the forums and offer help/advice whenever possible. Matt
Welcome! There's no need to explain liking a railroad not from your area. (Not that we mind, of course...)
Welcome to the Trainboard Welcome aboard Matt. Well can't go wrong with any of those Western roads here, especially SP. Glad your back into the hobby Have fun it's built rite in. Sharing is always appreciated Glen
Welcome Matt! I grew up in Central Montana watching the Milwaukee Road and Burlington Northern, later the BNSF & MRL. I now live in Colorado. I sure miss Montana! One of TB's staff lives up in NW Montana. I'm sure he'll chime in here as well. Look forward to your posts! :thumbs_up:
Yup. I'm here in the Flathead country. There are several others living in this area signed aboard, but they seem to mostly lurk. A lot of lone wolves. Welcome to TrainBoard! Boxcab E50
Thanks for the welcome, everybody:thumbs_up: BoxcabE50, are you involved with the model railroad club in C Falls?
east bay Hi Matt, I too am an east bay Antioch transplant to Oregon. I did the same thing with the SP being right behind our house. I'm new here myself trying to get a layout nailed now. Welcome Mike
Not involved with the club up in C Falls. I stop by Wheaton's now and then to harrass Chris, or he calls me up to do the same. I model in N and dabble a little in On30. Bad health has kept me rather inactive the past year and more. Boxcab E50
Welcome at TrainBoard, Matt. Since decades I'm into model railroading. I have an empire in my basement, the Westport Terminal RR. But now I'm building a few modules, H0n3. Wolfgang
I know Antioch well. I used to follow the SP and ATSF through Port Chicago (before the Navy closed off the highway) out through the Delta to Stockton....
I was just over at Wheaton's yesterday bugging him to get me some dry transfer sets for some logging cars I'm working on. Seems the model RR section is getting smaller and smaller :-( It's hard not to pull the trigger and start modeling On30, with all the nice logging loco's that are out.....
Yes. That section has shrunk, significantly. Nothing he can do about it- Decisions from higher up. When they had their weekly (Thursdays) 20% discount day, sales were going quite well, growing. Even when it was reduced to 15%, still good. But when that was completely halted, sales slumped. I'm waiting for a call that my On30 Annual has arrived. Boxcab E50
