Prompted from an episode of Hemispheric Views where they brought up this subject of Nostalgic November where you would share a memory of anything from your past that brings a smile to your face. I hadn’t thought much of it since I listened to the episode but all of a sudden over the last couple of days I realized things I was doing, researching, or even talking about have been reminding me of something from my youth.

Trains… 🚂

That is right, trains. I have always had this interest / fascination with trains which at some point also lead me to model trains when I was younger. I am not sure when it ever first started but it could have been a visit to the Henry Ford Museum as a kid, or watching trains go by the train tracks at the end of the street, or maybe from my walks home from school or when my friend and I would go exploring train bridges and walk along the tracks near our houses, or it could just be they are huge machines and as a kid that is really cool! I am not sure when my interest in trains finally led me to model trains but when that happened I remember being interested all over again as it was something I could purchase, build, and tinker with all the extra electronics.

Over the years, I stopped getting more model train stuff and boxed everything up when I went to college. After college, there was a brief time when I lived with my brother and I got really into it again and started buying engines and other parts as a local store was going out of business. However, once I moved away to Chicago that obsession stopped again. Once I moved back to Minnesota and we had younger kids I set up the track and got all the trains out a couple of times but even then that has now passed. They are now sitting in a box high up in the closet of our basement craft room. Maybe someday I will bring them down and set them up again.

One thing is for sure, anytime I find myself running on an old Rail Trail, crossing train tracks to get somewhere, visiting places with old train Depots, or even thinking about how I used to walk home from school. All of those experiences trigger memories of when I was younger.