Little Red Caboose

Over the past couple of weeks Sheila and I have been rethinking our plans for the back yard.

The original idea was to do patio stones on one half, and put in a petanque pitch on the other half. When building our fence last summer we cut out half of our parking pad to extend the usable area of the yard to allow for the length needed for the pitch. Petanque is a fabulous game, suitable for an evening's entertainment with friends, over wine or pastis. We thought it would be lots of fun, and require very little maintenance.

It is the joy and curse of a new home, that you start with a completely blank slate. Your starting point consists of property lines and a few bylaws. The rest is up to your hopes, dreams and whatever labour you can squeeze out of your friends and family in exchange for beer and burgers. This summer represents year two, in what we hope will be a three year building schedule for the yard. The beginning of phase two allowed for a re-examination of our plans.

I'm a life long train nut. My first train was a Lego passenger set I got when I was four. I still have it, and have purchased a load more Lego train items over the past few years. The problem is, even in our new house, I have no where to set up the darned things in any state of permanence. I've been mildly bummed about this. We have a great basement which will eventually be a great workshop. We have two spare bedrooms, one of which is the library/office, and the other where I keep my fencing gear and odds and ends. I could put a train in there, but we do plan to have a kid someday, and I'll lose the room then.

A couple of Mondays a go I was running some errands, and my route took me past one of the model train shops in town. I went in to do a bit of window shopping. Over dinner that evening I told Sheila I'd been rethinking the petanque pitch, and asked her what she thought of doing a garden railway instead. It wasn't the first time the possibility had come up, but it was the first time I took it seriously. Whenever Sheila and I want to know anything about anything, the first thing we do is order a book (I do work in a bookstore after all). The book came, we did some reading, did some talking, and came to a decision.

Yesterday we drove down to another model train shop, and bought ourselves a little red caboose, and one length of track for it to sit on. I figured it would be a good place to start, to give us something visual to refer to while we plan our railway. I'm pleased as punch just looking at it sitting on the table. It has doors that open, and operating interior and exterior lights. You can even replace the chimney on it with one that produces smoke.

It isn't a railroad empire yet, but for the moment I can count myself as equal to the mayors of every small town in Alberta. After all, every small town in Alberta has a caboose sitting on a piece of track, right?