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Welcome to Coloma Rails

Welcome to “Coloma Rails”, the plan for this blog will be to document my process of building a N Scale model railroad using KATO Unitrack.

All my life I have always wanted a model railroad layout, and have tried on numerous occasions.  Majority of my issues have been space, or we ended up moving to a new location and I never finished a layout.

As a child, I could not have a permanent layout in my parents house, so when I became an adult it was time to finally get a layout.

I first started when I was 21 with N scale and like now, with KATO Unitrack.  I chose N scale at the time since my plan was to build the layout on a shelf system.  The shelves were built and the track was laid and then I moved.

My second time at the hobby was a couple years later and I thought I may have a spare bedroom.  This time I was going to build in HO scale.  I purchased all the lumber to work on the benchwork and completed most of the assembly to find out my wife was pregnant with our second child and the room will be gone.  I then decided to place some plywood with folding legs and run a Lionel layout in the dining room for awhile.

Years go by and it is 2003 and we built a new 4 bedroom 2 story house out in Aurora, IL.  My regret, I elected not to build a basement and once again I was limited on space.  Out in the garage I did start on a N scale layout using a hollow door and the Woodland Scenics foam kit/riser.  The door/table was built, the foam was all glued down and track laid.  I even finished the tunnel for the layout.  Well, baby number 3 was born in 2005, my parents retired down to Arizona, and we elected to join them down there.  There went that train layout.

While in Arizona I played around with some of the Lionel Fastrack on the floor of our house (it is very rare to have a basement in Arizona, and we did not have one).  I thought about many many times to build a layout out in the garage, but the summer temperatures can reach 120 degrees and it gets really hot in the garage.  So no layout was ever made.

In November of 2014 my father passed away and he was buried up north in Chicago, my mother also plans on being buried next to my father.  So in 2016 I decided to start my planning and look for a place to live again up north where I could be close enough to visit my parents cemetery.  I met my wife back in 1994 in St. Joseph, Michigan and her parents are buried here.  Yet it is only 90 miles to Chicago and the housing prices are much better than the Chicagoland.  So in September 2016 we bought a house in Coloma, MI (about 6 miles east of Lake Michigan) with a BASEMENT.  Out of all my houses I have owned, I finally got a basement. But, (there is always a but) the basement is finished.  One half of the basement is finished with drywall with one door leading to the laundry room and one door leading to what is now my office.  The finished half of the basement is my mancave, TV, Couch, and a bar.  So I really did not want to get rid of all that for a train layout.

We fast forward one year to the present day and the model railroading bug has bit again.  I still do not want to give up the TV, couch area of the basement, but the bar was never really used much this past year and I thought the top of it could make for a decent model railroad layout.

So this week I decided that is what I am going to do.  I originally wanted to go with HO scale, but at that scale it would be a little tight and look small.  So once again where it all started 22 years ago, we are going with N scale and KATO Unitrack.

Please feel free and join me on my adventure on the “Coloma Rails”.

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