Do the seasons make a difference to model railroaders? Oh you bet! Of course, what difference depends upon your scale. If you are in the table scales of Z through HO (or S or O), you may find yourself at conventions in July or August. Basements are cooler in the summer than upstairs, so that could be a good place to hang out, but attic layouts can become insufferable in the summer. I once had a layout in the hayloft of a barn; really, there was only about a month in the spring and another in the fall when it was nice up there.

I’ve heard guys complain that come winter, the flooring in their houses shrunk and then dirt filtered down onto their basement layouts. As a result, every winter run date was preceded by extensive cleaning, and whenever the missus walked across the living room to answer the phone, a little dirt storm sifted down. Heckuva way to run a railroad!.

Garden railroading is another issue altogether, of course. In late spring, everything blooms and the garden railroader wants to spend all the time out there. Actually, between the neighbors’ cats, the possums, raccoons, and other critters, it may not be a bad idea to have someone out there all the time. Of course spring finds trees dropping various seedpods, leaf cases, and other trash that has to be swept up and collected. The white birch and the Leland cypress trees persistently drop sticks, twigs, and small branches that need to be policed up before some train lumbers off the tracks..

I think of summertime as that period of time between the mess of spring and the litter of fall. Folks come to visit and fall in love with garden railroading. This year they get to adore Bachmann’s 3-truck Shay complete with sound. They don’t see the ravages of winter when I couldn’t run a train if you held a gun to my head. Throughout much of February, March, April, and May, I have to extract about ten million wing nuts from the Norway maple tree. At least I replaced my shake roof with composition, so I won’t have to go up there and pull out the trees that have tried to start in the shakes..

On hot days in my hometown of Medford, Oregon, when the temperature is over a hundred degrees, the humidity is under 25 percent and so the vast pool of shade from maple, cypress, birch, and claredendron trees becomes a cool oasis in the upper eighties, a pleasant place to sip iced tea and run trains. This isn’t just a now-and-then thing; it lasts all summer long..

It takes a whole boxcar load of remembering about those glorious days of summer to keep the faith during the dreary, stormy days of winter, after Santa has gone home and Jack Frost has stayed around to spoil everything. Attics get frosty, basements grow chill, garages become forbidding, and we watch videos in the den. Small wonder we’d all like to do our model railroading right in the living room where it’s warm in the winter and air conditioned in the summer. However, setting up in the living room can become contentious, unless you’re a bachelor..

Of course, North America is a huge place with lots of different climates, and it depends upon which one you occupy and what scale you have. I was born and raised in the Midwest, Kansas and Illinois, where mosquitoes would pass for N-scale B-29s. I went to high school in Missouri. I had HO in the basement, thank you. In the Air Force, I was stationed in Texas and South Carolina. As an adult, I lived in Upstate New York and Massachusetts before coming to Oregon in 1972 where I’ve spent the rest of my life. I never disliked any of the places I lived, but five feet of snow and 30 below in Albany, NY was a bit much..

Having a layout anywhere is a challenge. The first issue is to come to an agreement with the other person with whom you share the house. Model railroading can be a very peaceable pursuit and could be the glue that binds a family together, if both people want it that way. If you try to acquire land like James Hill or Commodore Vanderbilt, don’t be surprised if you suffer similar problems with popularity..

Summer, when cabin fever is at its lowest level, would be a good time to hash it all out and come to an agreement both of you can endure. No, she doesn’t want the layout in the living room; think Martha Stewart. When I allowed my wife to make out-of-scale additions to the garden railroad, her attitude toward the whole thing improved noticeably. It’s all a matter of give-and-take. She has actually picked up two wing nuts to every one I’ve fetched out, so I’m grateful..

Why is the Norway maple still there? Well it does provide shade, but mostly, my wife likes it. Since I love my wife, the issue is settled. She’s the one who sorted out the sprinkler system that keeps the layout green, so that helps to balance out the lines of debt. Running trains remains a challenge, particularly since I insist on using great, big rolling stock that challenges my track work. Meanwhile, I’ve had a triple bypass, so I need help..

Someday, I’ll retire from editing the magazine and then the garden railroad will get scaled down, not in size so much as intensity. Shorter trains with shorter cars will tolerate rough track far better. Perhaps I’ll turn the test track into a real layout with more landscaping and a more interesting track plan. Summer is a good time for all of this thinking. My biggest challenge is to see if I can get one of my grandkids to become an apprentice model railroader in the summer. I knew there was some reason kids had all that time off from school!