Spotlight on Don Pearce

My history in model railroading must have started when I was born in 1947.  I was raised on a farm right next to the New York Central Railroad.  It must have been those steam whistles that I heard all day and night at the crossing just down from the farm house.  I still have a few memories from those bygone days. I received my first train set when I was five years old, it was a Marx set.  When Christmas came along the next year my farther had purchased more track and switches and I remember waking up and the living room was completely filled with track and trains. When I was about fourteen I bought my first H.O. train set from money I earned working on a tobacco farm.  I bought a 4x6 piece of plywood and had this set up in my bedroom. Model railroading took a break for some time till I finished high school.  When I finished at Fanshawe College I joined the O gauge club of London.  After moving back home and started working, I tried out some N gauge but found it hard to work with. After getting married my wife encouraged me to get my H.O. equipment  unpacked and started to build a layout in our basement in Sweaburg.  This is when I met a good friend Ralph Tayler another model railroader in H.O. scale.  A few years later Ralph had to abandon his layout and move to Woodstock and about the same time, another friend, John Schell had to do the same with his layout.  Shortly after I also had to do the same, and since I was the only one with a basement, I asked these two gentlemen if they would like to get together and build a join layout.  This was over twenty years ago now and that was the start of our present dar layout the "Ontario Western Railroad ".  We had to dismantle it for a move to a new house.  This gave us an opportunity to try different designs in layout planning.  The new layout being two levels, walk around control with Digitrax and above all, no duck unders.  Since then we have grown to about a crew of eight operating today. Now the latest chapter in my model railroading history is joining our new group in town, The Woodstock Model Railroad Club or The Huff and Puff, as my wife refers to it. Remember to have fun and enjoy this wonderful hobby of model railroading .