[?]

I have been in model railroading on and off since I was about 3 years old. For Christmas when I was three years old my father purchased a Lionel train set. While my mother and I were out shopping he set up the train set under the Christmas tree. I can still remember the sight of him standing there and the tree chugging around the tree. You can say the scene left a lasting impression.

Another childhood factor that contributed to my interest in trains was I had a great seat for watching the real thing. As a child we lived within 500 feet of the B&O Philadelphia Subdivision in Crum Lynne, PA. I used to sit at the window in a special chair, and watch the parade of B&O, C&O, WM, and Reading locomotives roll by. Later the Reading equipment disappeared and the B&O/C&O blue and yellow gave way to Chessie yellow and vermillion.

During this time I had a HO scale layout in the basement that my father built. It was basically an oval on a 4 x 8 piece of plywood. I had some buildings and painted roads. This was the basic form of the layout for some 25 years. When we moved from Crum Lynne the model railroad stuff was packed away. I got my train fix the next few years by rail fanning.

Now move the clock forward some 10 years to when my son began to show an interest in trains. Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends now became his favorite toys and videos. My wife knowing my interest in trains encouraged me to start a layout for my son and myself. In 2001 the Reading Lackawanna Kensington & Trenton was laid down on two 4 x 8 pieces of plywood. Determined to have a "real" layout I began making mountains and other terrain. However, within a year I realized that the RLK&T was not sparking my interest. When my son and daughter complained about the layout not being fun I knew something was wrong. The layout was not progressing. Finally in early 2002 and after agonizing over the fact that I would have to destroy much of what I had created over the last year, the RLK&T was torn down.

Some family issues and circumstances arose late in 2002 which caused me to take a hiatus from working on the layout or even thinking about it. I continued working on the large collection of kits I had accumulated. The ruins of the RLK&T became a storage table for finished kits and tools. It was during this time period I began frequenting the model railroad forums on the Internet and getting great inspiration from what I came across.

In early 2004 I realized that the layout was not going to happen anytime soon. Through my online involvement with Railroadforum.com and Railroad Line Forum I came across the idea of building a diorama. I began working on what I called the Passenger Station Diorama. The first step in the creation of that diorama was painting and constructing a station kit. As the station near completion I began to grow increasingly impatient to start working on scenery.

For quite a while I had been taking photos of my equipment using EZ-Track on piece of green colored plywood. While the equipment looked nice the photos didn't. Basement walls, green painted wood just made the pictures look bleak and uninspiring. After a little thought I realized the problem was no scenery to accent the model.

I looked around the basement at the structures I had built and the pile of discarded foam from the RLK&T. It was at this point the idea of building and detailing a simple diorama based on a simple structure that could be a photograph backdrop was born. As the construction of passenger station kit was progressing this would give the opportunity to learn and refine my scenery techniques.

Another key component was that I could use some of the discarded foam that was piled up around the basement. This would allow me to construct something that may or may not turn out well with out a large outlay of money for new materials.