Welcome to Eric's Trains! My name is Eric Siegel and my train adventure started around 1990, when I was 14 years old and inherited my father's old postwar Lionel set. The set had been in storage for many years in a dark and damp basement, so much of it was is pretty bad shape. However, with a little work, I was able to get the majority of the set back into operating condition. Additionally, I was able to add a large amount of new equipment to the set, resulting in decently sized 16'x8' layout.
By the late 80's and early 90's, Lionel had been reduced to making stuff that really wasn't all that great and the selection of highly detailed scale trains was fairly limited. Although several innovations had been made during Lionel's MPC years, quality and detail was still a little lacking, as was selection. All the new pieces that I bought during this time were a bit flimsy and the plastic pieces broke very easily in the event of a train wreck or even under normal wear and tear. The low level of craftsmanship in the new trains was something of a disappointment, but what could I do? The internet as we know it today did not exist yet, so finding Postwar trains was both time consuming and expensive. I was forced to make do with what was readily available. This low point for Lionel was truly a time when a father could say to his son, "They don't make 'em like they used to". But that would soon change.
In 1994 I went off to college at UGA. Go Dawgs! My mother sold her house and I had to put the train back into storage in my father's basement. I took a great deal of care in packing it away, as I knew I would one day take it out again. After graduating from UGA, I moved back to Atlanta to start my career in IT and by 2002 I was living in a large loft apartment in downtown Atlanta. The arrival of my son in 2004 prompted me to pull the set out and start the adventure all over again! I quickly discovered that the new century had ushered in a new "golden age" for O-Gauge trains. In the mid 90's, Lionel once again started to make quality products again. Additionally, serious competition entered the O-Gauge train scene and Lionel began to lose it's near monopoly of the O-Gauge train market as manufacturers like Atlas, MTH, Weaver and others brought a level of quality and realism to O-Gauge never seen before. Additionally, modern technology had taken over and completely revolutionized model railroading. With multiple companies now making high quality O-Gauge trains again and technology taking model railroading to new heights, it was a great time to get back into the hobby!
The first new layout that I created in the loft apartment was a modest 12x8 size. Soon after I started building the layout I decided to abandon the postwar style of train layout and go for a highly detailed scale layout. This meant shelving or selling off most of my smaller O-27 trains and purchasing new 1:48 scale pieces. I never completely finished the 12X8 layout because in late 2006 I bought my first house, which had a large basement to used solely for the trains. I started building my current layout, The Appalachian & Western Railroad, in 2007 and by the late 2010's the layout was looking mostly finished, although work continues on it to this day. You can keep up with the latest layout progress by following Eric's Triains on YouTube.
The current layout is about 425 square feet in size and is spread across 4 different rooms: The Main Room, The Hallway Room, The Colorado Room, and The Carolina Room. The layout is 100% command controlled, utilizing MTH's Digital Command System (DCS) as well Lionel's Base3 command sytem. The trains all run on Atlas O 3-rail track and I use a combination of Atlas and Ross switches.
In addition to my large O-Scale layout, I also dabble in a couple other types of trains. I have a growing collection of O-Gauge and Standard Gauge tinplate trains like those made by Lionel, Ives and American Flyer in the early 20th century. I also have a small amount of On30(narrow gauge O-Scale) equipment and there is a small narrow gauge line in the mountains of the Colorado Room on my layout.
If you'd like to keep up with my model railroading adventures, I am most actie on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook
