ohn says that he's been an O Scaler "forever." Growing up in the New Orleans area, he was fortunate as a teenager to make numerous visits to Frank Ellison's famous Delta Lines O Scale pike. He even had a chance to sit in on a few operating sessions. He remembers that Ellison's seven or eight regular operators were really serious about running the railroad as much like the prototype as possible. They were very knowledgable about prototype railroading, and they used telephone communications and timetables. The power was pure DC, supplied by a bank of Pullman car batteries under the layout. They were about 1/2 feet wide and three or four feet long. Between operating sessions, Ellison would recharge the batteries for the next day of operations. The exposure to Ellison, Bill Harry, and the other Delta Lines regulars, convinced John that O Scale Model Railroading was to be his life's avocation. His first models, built in the early 1950's, were Westbrook Models freight car kits. John continued building models through the 1960's, and in 1979 he started work on part of his present layout while living in Huntsville, Alabama, where he was employed by the city-owned power company. When he returned to the New Orleans area, John brought six large chunks of his Huntsville layout with him to start the new layout.

Greg Heier / 48/ft. O Scale News magazine / Fall 2002