Part 2 - My 10 years at the Train Room.
My involvement with the Masonicare Railroad Room or as we call it, the Train Room started the same was as most all of my railroad related activities; my Nana and Papa. At a very young age I fell in love with Railroads and 9.5/10 it involved my grandparent's, Nana and Papa's, help. When I was younger I spent a lot of time with them even living with them for a year while my family was in the process of moving. Now my Papa was a TV electrician and had a strong love for airplanes and building models of them. That quickly changed when I came around. After finding out I took a liking to trains and with the help of a little blue tank engine by Papa switched everything to trains. Some of the best memories that I have is waking up at their house, having Nana making Mickey shaped pancakes and us all sitting down in time to watch one episode of "Shinning Time Station" before Papa would drive me to Pre-School. Fallowed by coming back home to them and playing toy trains for hours only taking a break to eat and to watch the occasional Amtrak roar up the Springfield line. Nana's house is on a hill overlooking the tracks in her backyard and had a large back porch with a wall of windows. even today when I'm over her house I will run to the window every time I hear the train whistle blowing.
One of the biggest treats at this time was during the summer when Nana and Papa would load up the car and take me to visit a local train attraction, the Train Room. It was always amazing and it was just one of the special things that I got to share in my life with them and is another reason why the Train Room is so dear to me. Fast forwards to the end of my middle school life. I am just about to start High School and I'm required to complete 30 hours of volunteer service over the next 4 years. I looked around until someone asked if I was interested in volunteering at Masonicare. I signed up and worked a summer in the rehab and recreation departments with one of my cousins. But there was always this itch to ask if I could go work with the Train Guys. When I asked the head of volunteering was confused; " No one has ever asked to work up there, and its wouldn't be up to me you will have to ask the guys". We walked up to the room and she introduced me to them and asked if they were even interested in letting me help out. As if it was fate, once they heard my name they all asked me, " Were you the little guy that came in with your grandparents almost every week?" Long story short it wasn't very long until I was a part of the team and for 10 years that's where I spent Thursdays during my summers.
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| N-scale Layout back in 2008 |
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| Model of the Masonicare building on the layout |
As the youngest of the guys; me at 24 and the next youngest at over 65, I worked under the tables and helping move stuff around but it was great because I learned so much from these guys and not just about model trains. I love them all and even though we have lost a few in recent years, the time I spent with them has helped me become who I am today and I am forever grateful to them. I managed to work there during school breaks and even working out a bit of time during my college days. I was the go to guy when we would get daycare groups and families with small kids because still being a kid at heart I became known as the guys put it, " The world's most renown expert on Thomas". I would bring in my collection of HO scale Bachmann Thomas and Friends characters and the kids would go insane. The parents would always tell me how excited their kids where knowing their favorite characters were running on the layout and that always put a smile on our faces. The layout wasn't for us to play with; its was for them and anyone else that walked through the door.
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| Some of the Thomas Characters I bring to the layout |
With starting my new job in the past year I haven't been able to make our regular open houses on Thursdays. I do come back here and there as time allows me and on special weekends around the holidays, but I do miss it greatly. I stay in touch with the guys and I sure as heck advertise the room as much as I can. But I had to admit without the train room apart of my regular life anymore I wanted to look and see if I could find a new railroad related club or group I could join to help fill that hole. When looking I around I went to talk to my Nana and during this talk I remembered something that I was always curious about; but for the last 10 years I never had the funds or transportation to get there.....I took another look at google maps and what do you know!! Its only 10 exits down the highway from my new job.....
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