Meet your HO Scale Forum Moderator

[Soldier DieCastoms]

Thank You Kevin for accepting my offer to help out around here.

I would like to introduce myself and tell you a little about where I come from and some of the things that have gotten me into model railroading, as well as where I am currently in my budding empire.

As a child, my father worked at a living railroad museum in South Carver Massachusetts called "Edaville Railroad." He was one of their several blacksmiths for a few years until the museum went out of business. Family members of employees were allowed to ride the 1:1 Two Foot gauge trains as long as there were plenty of seats for the paying customers. I fell in love with trains because of the experiences there at Edaville. I have had some toy trains and model railroad stuff over the years but never more then "trainset" or battery toys.

It's about 20 years later now, and I am married to a wonderful woman who likes that I have a hobby. Neither of us are employed and are living on bits and pieces of income from fixing computers or from her artwork or small jobs I am able to do for my parents, with whom we currently live.

When I HAD a job, I bought a Prodigy Express DCC command system, and a brand new N Scale Locomotive. The LHS said it was DCC Ready. It was not. At all. The prodigy cannot power an analog loco (No address 00 like other systems) so everything just sat. I lost my job soon after the purchase, so never did get a DCC decoder.

Recently I made a deal and traded a scratch-built wooden flat car for a Roundhouse 2-6-0 locomotive "New in box", with a TCS T1 decoder installed. Some time after that I traded my N scale locomotive and a few other small pieces of N scale for a Bachmann GP40-2, with a 4 function Digitrax DH140 decoder. On Jan 10th, I bought a used and well worn Athearn Blue-Box FP45 for a whole $5 and am 'restoring' it. I am currently working on a trade of "hotwheels" and "matchbox" cars for another Blue-Box, this one a C44-9w.

I should be getting quite a few more matchboxes and hotwheels, and likely some more actual scale vehicles, herpa and trident included, as part of another deal, in exchange for installing some N Scale decoders.

PLEASE, if you have ANY interest in helping out someone VERY new to model railroading, by trading:
either locomotives with or without DCC -or- DCC decoders with or without locomotives in exchange
-for-
a selection of matchbox or hotwheels cars, or the relatively few Herpa, Trident and other 1:87 vehicles I have -or- DCC decoder installations (I AM NOT a professional DCC installer, remember that!)

If you need to contact me for interests in trade or for moderating, I have provided my ICQ number and an AIM contact. Because of a sensitive phrase in my MSN and Yahoo accounts, I have them hidden. If you prefer MSN or Yahoo, PM me. I have a Blog, but I am HORRIBLE at keeping it current. It can be found at DieCastoms Blog

If you have any questions or comments for me, feel more than welcome to reply here or choose any of the methods above to contact me!

Regards,
Mike, A.K.A "DC" from Diecastoms.