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It was my wonderful good fortune to encounter two gentlemen on the TrainNet Forum who were both former OO-scale modellers and who were willing to part with their collections of locomotives and cars at prices I could afford. I had acquired a little building (20'x8') which had been used as a campground bunkhouse which I now know as Penzance. This became the place. With the help of son Andy, we built the benchwork as 30" x 20' along one side, a similar piece across the end, and a 5' sliding fiddle yard along the far right wall.
So now I had a collection of completely unknown steam and diesel locomotives, coaches I couldn't identify, and freight cars (goods wagons) that were totally unfamiliar. One of these same good gentlemen had been subscribing to the NTSC version of RailScene tapes since their beginning in 1984 and offered to sell me the entire lot. It was a wonderful way to learn. We watched one of the 40 tapes each evening for as many days. The sound of Ken Morgan's voice became as familiar to me as our local newscasters.
Up to this point I had no idea of what Penzance actually looked like. But again acquaintances encounted on TrainNet came to my rescue. Several in England were able to find magazine articles for me with photos. One chap from western Canada actually took photos for me on a trip to Cornwall. So construction began. That first year I build several of the structures at the Long Rock Locomotive Depot as seen in this picture.
Although my little building had already seen over 30 Maine winters, it sort of gave up on the next one and allowed a whole lot of water to leak into the inside during a warm day, dripping right onto the shed and coaling stage. This froze the next night and the buildings literally exploded. I wasn't aware of it for several weeks, as 3-4' of snow surrounded the building and there was/is no heat inside. That extra roof you see in the above photo is a direct result of the water leak. Before that the roof was pretty much flat.
Penzance Station | Long Rock Depot | Construction | About Me | Acknowledgements & Links