Remembering Dad

My dad and I used to send each other model train videos we each discovered. I am not a model railroader and really have no interest, other than it was my dad's passion. Yet I loved to send him train videos and books I thought he may not have seen yet. Three times, I actually sent videos he had never seen, and that was a HUGE shock for me!!! He had almost always seen every train video on YouTube.

I was a bit more lucky with books. I was able to find several books he enjoyed all the way up until the end. Most notably, a history of the Gorre and Daphetid model railroad. I think he read that one several times, and the copy I sent him was his first reading!

The last four or five times I saw my dad, he wanted me to photograph his layout, which still to this day takes up the entire garage of the house where my mom continues to live. Many times, my dad had me proofread articles he wanted to submit to model railroad magazines. I introduced him to blogging so he could share his train memories and accomplishments. He was huge into kit-bashing. And he was a legend on model railroading discussion boards. He didn't put any store-bought houses or people on his layout. EVERYTHING was painstakingly crafted to scale by hand. Literally painstaking. He battled arthritis increasingly as the years wore on. Yet he never stopped, not until the day he could no longer get out of bed due to cancer.

When the below video popped up for my suggested viewing, I couldn't resist watching. It caused me to visualize how my dad must have set up his own layout. He was constantly upgrading it and trying to improve things. My dad would have enjoyed this video so much. I really miss sharing stuff like this with him.

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