By Lee Thomas

Author  Bio I remember my first train set vividly. It was an oval HO set. All set up (by Santa) and ready to run when I came downstairs. I don't recall my age but it was around 6 or 7.

My grandfather had a farm in Royersford along the Scylkill River in Southeast PA. The RR put a line right through his farm after he bought it in the 40's. We went there for supper every Sunday when I was growing up. In the late 50's or early 60's I recall seeing steamers moving long loads of coal to Philladelphia.

I remember my first train set vividly. It was an oval HO set. All set up (by Santa) and ready to run when I came downstairs. I don't recall my age but it was around 6 or 7.

That was 50 years ago, and there have been many more trains since. In fact pretty much anything that moved, made noise, smoke, and had to burn fuel was of great interest to me. Most of my early years were spent learning how things worked by taking them apart and reassembling and running them again.

I had an equal passion for aviation which is where my career path took me. I am a licensed aircraft mechanic, inspector, and pilot with 30+ years modifying, repairing, and maintaining Business Jets. This honed my skills and expanded my knowledge of many materials and processes including precision fabrication and machining of metals and composites.

I have have built and flown two amature build sport aircraft, which makes it easier to explore old rail routes (many are now rail trails) and take aerial photos of steamers operating today out of Steamtown and Strasburg PA. Judging from the many riders waving as I fly over, I suspect I am in numerous home movies and photos.

All of my interests, from trains to planes, have been with their early years. I have stayed with scale steam era locomotives and rolling stock, with preference towards back woods operations like narrow guage logging and mining. I even got away with building a fine scale HO layout of a logging camp in our first appartment after I got married.

My father in law has an outdoor G Scale railway, and a close friend has one as well. The influence of both swayed me towards G Scale and (remember the thing about noise, smoke, etc) I naturally was drawn directly into Live steam. However I have since added some electrics with onboard RC controllers and battery power.

I enjoy the mechanical side of modelling the most, including Building, Machining, and Fabricating. I seldom settle for something built "as is". I assume there is something that could be improved.

I hope that some of the lessons I have learned will translate into useful information for others.

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