Pardon me, boy, is that the PATG Choo-Choo?
I got my first train set the Christmas I was 3 yo; I’ve never gotten over it. I love trains — riding them, watching them, chasing them — and I’ve long wanted to build a model railroad of my own. Jobs and other circumstances have necessitated a lot of moving house: I count roughly 20 physical addresses, plus several PO and private mail boxes, in my history. Barring catastrophe, I plan that this will be my last earthly address. It’s time to get this railroad built!
I used to travel alongside a now-abandoned rail line called the Birmingham Mineral Railroad (BMRR), in east central Alabama. It was built to service mines and quarries for Birmingham’s steel industry. My freelance railroad (PA&TG) is named for 3 locations along the line: the towns of Pinson and Altoona, and Tumlin Gap, under which a tunnel carried the railroad from Murphree’s Valley toward the city of Attalla. You can read more about the BMRR on this site. N.B. the line I refer to is called the Huntsville Branch No 2 on that site.