My wife and I moved into our new house in the Spring of 2020. The house had the right facilities for both of us, a studio for her and a discrete one car garage for me.
But first, let me offer a very brief history of my “serious” model railroad life.
It all started out in Michigan in the late 1970’s by digging a basement railroad room and building a nice house on top of it. Enter the original Chicago & Mackinac Railroad, the C&M-1, which occupied about 600 square feet or so of the basement, with a mainline of a bit over 300’ and with remote dispatching. It could handle a crew of a dozen or more operators, operated for a bit under 10 years and it hosted well over 100 operating sessions.
A move to California and a growing family took priority over model railroading for a number of years. But in the late 1990’s with the kids grown up, educated and out of the house, I negotiated the rights to a 420 square foot California basement, (also known as a garage). In that space I built the C&M-2, a nice, partial mushroom designed 300’ mainline, operating model railroad.
It operated for a bit less than ten years and hosted scores of operating sessions, including 4 Bay-Rails events and a Pro-Rail event. The ideal crew size was around 8 or 9 operators, limited only by the size of the room.
Then there was another move and a considerably smaller layout, the C&M-3, hosting dozens of op sessions, including one Bay-Rails event.
So, this brings us to 2020, and our most recent and hopefully our last move. Enter the C&M-4, the smallest of the Chicago & Mackinac Railroads. Check out the planning, design and construction of the C&M-4 in the Building the C&M section of the website.