Ron received his first train set when he was eight months old. (He was not allowed to touch it.) And, since his parents lived a stone's throw from the Rock Island Line in Illinois, he loved the real ones, too.
That was the beginning of a fascination with model trains that lasts to this day.
His first love has always been for toy trains made by Lionel. He has STANDARD, O, O27, and HO gauges and extensive collection of operating accessories (barrel loader, coal loader, cattle loader, etc.). Other accessories are stations, crossing gates and signals. In addition, Ron has many Plasticville pieces and Dept. 56 Snow Village pieces.
And that's not all.
Ron has trains made by Ives, American Flyer, Marklin, and Hornsby, and "N" and "G" scale models as well. His oldest train is an American flyer standard gauge set from 1917. The bulk of Ron's collection is pre-war (before 1941). But he also has many pieces from the post-war (1945-1969) era.
Until he moved to Lawrence, Michigan, five years ago he never had a room to build a layout to display (and play with) his treasures. He does now. He's working on an 8'x 20' layout and has plans to add another 8'x 20' section in the near future.
In addition to collecting, Ron also buys, sells, trades, and repairs model trains.
A naturally gregarious guy, Ron is always up for a discussion about model trains. So feel free to talk train with him, especially out on the road when he's showing Big Mo.
Ron can be reached here.