"If It Ain't Hard, It Ain't Worth Doin'"
Home of Silver Line Graphics and After Market Model Railroad
Home of Silver Line Graphics and After Market Model Railroad
In 2017, while still living in Kentucky, my back issues made it too difficult to be on my feet for extended periods of time, so I had to give up my days of being dressed up in Star Wars costumes and find a new hobby I could fully enjoy. I thought back to my childhood love of trains and the classic Lionel train set that I had. This would lead me into the world of HO scale model railroading, a hobby I had only dreamed about as a child. I never felt that I had the skills for working on scale models, but having spent several years building full sized costumes and props, it didn’t take long to refine my talents to the 1:87th scale.
Trying to find my place in the model railroad hobby, I joined a model railroad club, and it introduced me to a bigger world than I had any idea existed. Gone were the days of plugging the power pack into the wall, hooking it up to some tracks laid out on the floor, and watching the simple train go around on an oval shape track. Today, DCC (Digital Command Control) is the dominant form of model railroading, and the capabilities are mind-blowing. Now you can operate multiple locomotives independently on the same track, each with their own sound and lighting effects. Layouts are far more detailed, life-like settings for more realistic operations and movements. Technology has advanced beyond what I would have ever thought in the hobby, but I knew it was the direction I wanted to go.
At the model railroad club, most of the other members had modern diesels or turn-of-the-century steam, and there was always someone with the steam-to-diesel transition era models. Even while watching online videos, I rarely saw the period of railroad that I really loved. Feeling homesick, I decided I wanted to model Virginia and Truckee Railroad because no one else did. Once I started down this path though, I realized there was very little in the way models I could use. If I wanted to see the videos of the trains running that I wanted to see, then I would have to make them myself. I learned how to disassemble the tiny models, soldering, airbrushing, and even designing my own decals.
Gallery of After Market Model Railroad photos
