About Me

Who Am I…?

To describe me in a flash, I am a train fanatic.  Growing up as a little boy in England, I have always had trains handy to play with.  For the longest time these were always steam and a couple of diesels.  I have ridden on the Intercity 125 train a number of times and always loved the train ride.  In 1988, My dad returned from Canada with a Bachmann CN train Set, my first Canadian train.  It was not long until it was out of the box and running after a switch of the plug.  In June of 1989, it was moving time for the family.  My train layout that never got finished had to stay, but the rest came along.  While living in Nova Scotia, the trains we not around where I lived, in Goshen, and trains slowly became less in my life.  Two years later, it was time to move again.  This time it was across two provinces to Ontario.  Once at the new house, trains still laid quiet, only to come about a year later when my Dad and I were looking to build a layout.  Due to certain circumstances, this never really got off the ground from the planning stage. 

Three years had passed and yet another move to South Porcupine, the trains finally came back.  It was at this point where I was planning and building a new layout.  There had been a few times before that I wish I could go back with a camera and get pictures again where the track around South Porcupine are, my first PBX ride with my grandparents, and a few other opportunities I had.

I finally got to laying track on my layout, which now took up half of my small bedroom, and got all the track down and started on doing the wiring.  It was then again stop on the train stuff, as another move was ahead to College.

 Once in Sudbury, to attend college, all my train stuff stayed in boxes for a couple of years.  During my first year of college I found a couple of hobby stores in Sudbury, and everything came back once more.  Although modelling the ONR had not occurred to me, I went ahead and brought myself a new CN engine.  When college was finally done, I had everything sent by boxes to where I would be living off Res, and begin with a small set-up on the carpet.  As time grew so did my collection of trains.  It was at this point that I had moved yet again not once but twice to where I lived in Sudbury, and had learned that CN was trying to pick-up Ontario Northland.  It was at this point I became more involved on a different level.  At this point, my only way back North was by ON bus-it was that type of thinking that if the ONR was sold, this bus may be gone for good.  So being that I had family in Timmins the blocks begin to fall into place

I started modeling and getting what I could train wise of the ONR, I traded a CN engine for an ONR engine, and started buying more ONR stuff.  It was then I started taking trips, and then came across a very good friend’s site in 2000.  After seeing Mike Robin’s look into the ONR, I was hooked, with all that was going on, I decided to show what train trips I take and create a site showing the ONR and what it offers to people in Northern Ontario and if sold what we, as community would lose.  So since I had more of a reason to travel up to the ONR and back again, it was time to show the ONR through my eyes, give the viewer a first hand look at the ONR, and what it is like to travel by train from Sudbury.  It was from that point back then, that I created my first site on trains.  A award was won for personal site back in 2000, and that lead to the start of a second site.  

A lot had changed since and I had moved back to Timmins, met the girl that is now my wife, got more into the hobby, then took a transfer to work in Cambridge.  Once moved I started working on a layout, and then had to move, and now being finally relocated in housing, a new layout is just about at the track stage.  This was the result after almost getting out of the hobby.  So with the suggestion of a few friends, I stayed in, and started with a smaller layout.

So this blog is dedicated to my wife, who has been there through everything, thick and thin, and stuck by me, and who has been accepting of my hobby.