Who am I? About Me

Few Words About Myself Tina Marie Caouette

My journey into model railroading began back in a small western town in Massachusetts so many years ago as a child. I have fond memories of spending countless days at my grandmother’s house. My uncle, an expert carpenter, also lived with my grandmother. As kids, granddaughter or grandson, we were all taught to cook, learned basic automotive repair as well as learned basic carpentry skills from our elders. To this day they have saved in more ways that I can write.

Anyway, one of the coolest memories is watching the Guildford trains that would cross through our small town less than three hundred yards behind my Grandmother’s house. I spent many a time walking those tracks as there wasn’t much to do in my small town. My first experience with model railroad came at the hands of my uncle who had built a large 20x20 layout in his garage attic. His attention to details, his unique ideas for scenery and grasp of wiring (no DCC back in those days) was incredible. It was always a treat to watch those trains run around his layout.

My uncle actually built me a small L-Shape table in my parent’s basement as a birthday present so I could run my own trains. As a young teen it was an escape and I learned a lot from trial and error and I do mean error. Well, as with many in this hobby, I grew into my teen years and trains weren’t on my interest list anymore as school, sports, social life seemed to foster most of my times. Things got boxed up and slowly over time disappeared from my parent’s basement.

Years later, after college, I found myself every now and then getting back into the hobby switching from HO scale to N scale because I didn’t have room in my apartment for anything larger. Again, I spent more time learning what not to do then actually succeeding. Yet again, life got busy and I do mean busy. I got married, bought a house and my son was born in 2004 so the trains once again went away.

It didn’t take long to see in my son’s eyes his love for trains as Thomas the Tank entered our life. For years it was an obsession with him, which got me once again hooked, for good this time, on the hobby. When he was two I built an O Scale layout that went across the top of his room, while building a larger N-Scale layout in my new home’s basement. We spent countless hours at Edaville Railroad in South Carver, Massachusetts, especially when Thomas the Tank was in town. It was tough just to get him to leave. On top of that we made countless trips to an array local hobby shops as we expanded his wooden Thomas the Tank that seemed to talk up most of the living room and at times, the kitchen floor.

Once again, life got crazy as circumstance arose and the decision to move from the east coast to the west coast was made….enter Vegas Baby!

The first couple of years was tough as the moved happened shortly after the economic crash in 2007 and 2008. My son still had his 4x8 O scale Thomas Layout but to survive I sold all my other trains for pennies on the dollar. The happiness he found in those trains I knew there was no way his layout was going anywhere. What made it even more special, is less than 300 yards up the street from the house I was renting there was a siding and daily Union Pacific trains would pass. As soon as my son heard the horns we had to make a mad dash for the tracks so he could see the engines.

A year later we moved to the other side of town so my son could attend a very nice new school. No trains nearby but we did make it a point to keep his trains in the garage and expand the layout. We also, spent many hours at the local train stores expanding his fleet.

One of the most memorable highlights I had with my son that revolved around trains was going to the Nevada Southern Railway Museum for his birthday where he got to ride in the UP Engine and blow the horn. I truly don’t know who smiled more, me or him that day. If you ever get to the Las Vegas area I strongly encourage you take a ride and support this great museum.

Well he’s a teenager now and more interested in music, sports and girls then trains but that passion hasn’t left me, in fact it has grown stronger. Maybe someday he’ll return to the hobby and all that I have built will be left to him and his kids.

In the past few years I got back into HO and have built a 16x14 modular layout. This layout consist of 13 individual sections which in the future I will be selling once my new home gets built. That new home will feature a large basement and a two level, extremely large HO layout that will end up being my life’s work.

Over the years, I’ve built smaller modular sections for people, I’ve weathered cars and sold them at clubs, EBay as well as through word of mouth. I’ve installed for other modelers who aren’t as tech savvy as me DCC units, LED lighting in their scratch built buildings as well as built custom buildings for their layout. During this time I had taken many videos as well as picture of proto types to inspire realism and flame that creativity.

Over the years I have been encouraged to launch a YouTube Channel and website but was hesitant. One thing I noticed was the lack of women in this field. Let me rephrase that…the lack of women who would publicly say that they LOVED TRAINS.

Having spent over 25 years in radio and TV as well as a having a background in computers; building this site as well as an array of others for my other business ventures. It was just a matter of committing to being back in the public eye so to speak as well as organizing and sharing my successes as well as my failures in this hobby. Plus, I needed to make sure that in some way this had to be a profitable venture, even if to just buy a few new additions to my layout.

As for my layout, it is best described as a fictional work in progress drawing from the east coast to the west coast and merging them into a form of reality I call…The Mojave Model Railroad. As I grew up just outside Worcester and now live in Nevada I wanted to combine railroads modalities from both worlds. So this isn’t your typical prototypical railroad….but it is my railroad and it makes me happy. Bottom line, at the end of the day that is all it should be about. HAPPINESS RUNNING YOUR TRAINS.

So enjoy this site, enjoy my videos, and enjoy my success and failures along the way. Send me tips, tricks, ideas good and bad. Let us travel down the track into this world of Model Railroading together and have some fun doing it.