Frolin's first layout
in Del Rio, Texas in the early 1970s
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Everyone has a story
about how they started with model trains and mine is about like many. My dad luv’d
trains too and he built me an HO layout on a 4x8ft sheet of plywood in late 1969 or
early 1970. While I got an N scale
and Lionel train sets later on, they never got my attention like this HO layout
and never got played with much.
My dad ran his own
Automotive Repair shop for many years, and in the waiting area he had a pool
table. And on that table is where
my layout sat most days of the week.
And customers were ‘entertained’ by this little boy running his trains
and talking about them (or so I have been told). The layout was moved off the pool table
many Fridays afternoon for the Friday and Saturday night pool games.
The layout featured a
large oval mainline, with a long passing siding, a circle loop siding and a
long spur. Trains were powered by
an MRC Dual-Master throttle, ran on Atlas brass track and electric snap
switches. My dad actually ran
copper wire through over-sized telephone type poles, up and over the layout to
the DC track blocks and to the switches.
There was no under table wiring, the high-line wires were real and used!
People ask why I like COKE. Just look at the first couple
pictures. I grew up with a
bottle Coke machine and even a Coke clock.
The date stamp on the first
four pictures says April 1970.
The next two say January 1973 and shows green surface, ballasted track
and many Plasticville buildings. These are square because they are from the old
110 camera. The last picture was from a new Polaroid in January
1977, with the layout
moved to the house. One photo shows me in the middle and my dad, Jerry Marek. He passed away in 1982 when I was 16
years old. My son Jerry was born in
1994 and named after him.
If you would like to see the photos in a ‘slideshow’ just click <here>
Page created on 2/26/2011