What Was I Thinking?!?!

If you ask my friends I am very conservative and will not make rash decisions. Normally I will think before I leap. Occasionally I say what the hell and jump into something even if I do not know what the hell I’m doing.

The other day a neighbour mentioned that the local model railway show was interested in displaying my ‘Z’ Scale trains for their show on the weekend of October 14-15 I told him that I would check into it. A couple of things occurred to me at this point, one, the trains had not been used in over 5 years and two, I have no idea how to run them or get them going. Let me explain, the trains in question were my Dad’s and they are made by Marklin in Germany and are the smallest scale trains made (1:220). The layouts are small enough to fit into a briefcase.

My dad purchased the different components about 30 years ago during his trips to Germany and built a custom layout which is in a table 5 feet long by 2 foot wide with a custom controller to control all the switches and tracks.

So now I have been playing with the trains the last couple of days trying to get them to run and finally I have successfully got a train running and it is amazing to just sit and watch the train go around the track. I am not sure why but I am enjoying the task of getting the trains and tracks back in shape. I have gotten quite proficient at setting up and hooking up different car combinations and knowing what speed to set the transformer to get the trains running without jumping the track. As I am not mechanically inclined If I may say so I am quite proud of myself.