Joe:
What about Barry the model railroader?
Barry:
Oh that guy! I’m almost ashamed to say I have enough
trains in my attic to fill half a hobby shop. Really they should be
in the basement, but I’ve been kind of homeless for five years.
Now that I have a basement, and it’s full of TV equipment, it’s
even more challenging!
I have been varnishing the cabinets in my workshop. As they
go up, I get to open up all those boxes in the attic, and it’s like
Christmas here. There’s stuff that I’d forgotten I had!
Joe:
How did you get into trains, what area interests you, and
have you had any layouts?
Barry:
That will probably end up in the TMTV blog, but I got
my start like most people on Christmas day when I was four
years old. I got a train set. If you look at the home movies, you
can see my Dad playing with the train, and I’m not allowed to
touch it!
I’ve built so many layouts over the years, I’ve lost count. I’ve built
shelf layouts, portable layouts, some 4x8s, and layouts for other
people, but I have yet to build a permanent basement-sized layout
for myself.
Now that I have a basement of my own, I’m really looking for-
ward to doing that. And I’m going to go nuts! I’m going to go
double-deck and have a helix, two staging yards, and I’ll do all
those things that I’ve been thinking of doing for 10 years! And
it’s going to work, because I’ve had 10 years to plan it.
Joe:
What specific prototype, era?
Barry:
I am a huge fan of coal railroading. I will probably model
something between 1975-1995. Right now it’s looking like it
will be Norfolk Southern, but I am still thinking about going
Chessie CSX.
Every once in a while I think
about S scale too. I have
so much HO stuff now that
it would be another five
years getting rid of it and
switching to S scale.
I’ll do some little S scale
projects on TrainMasters
to get my fix.
Joe:
I’ll bet you enjoyed
your visit to Tom
Patterson!
Barry:
Oh my gosh! Tom’s
is the model for my kind of
layout.
Joe:
You mentioned having
a hobby shop at one point.
What was the story there?
Barry:
Back in my mid-
twenties, I was looking
to make a career change,
ironically, from television. I’ve always wanted to do something
in the hobby, so I decided to open a small store.
I needed a place to do that, and in the town where I lived, the
Via Rail station had space available. So I set up what was the
only model train shop in Canada located in an active train sta-
tion at that time. It was a wonderful experience that I wouldn’t
trade for anything.
That shop was successful for a time, then someone called me
to do some video editing for them. Very quickly my career
changed back to TV again.
MRH introduces TrainMasters TV - 14
14: Barry has been storing most
of his personal modelling sup-
plies for over five years. Produc-
ing TrainMasters TV has finally
given him the opportunity and
motivation to get it all unpacked.
14
MRH-Dec 2013
