Many years ago, when I was 13 years old, my cousin’s husband, Steve, introduced me to the world of model railroading. When I would visit him in Charleston, S.C., we would sit at the kitchen table long into the evening hours, he with his coffee and me with whatever a teenager drinks, constructing buildings from cardstock and toothpicks. This was when I caught the model railroading bug that has stuck with me for some 50-plus years.
While riding the bus to school, I told one my friends about the trains and the hobby. As it turned out, his neighbor, Mr. Mooney, was also a model railroader. I spent many hours in Mr. Mooney’s basement looking over his layout and dreaming about the model railroad I would someday build.
Mr. Mooney…