About

- Eating lunch @ train show Oct. 2011 -

Thank you for visiting my model railroad web site. My name is Peter Vanvliet. I live in Houston, Texas. I have had a personal web site up since January 1994. Since 1999 its focus has been on my model railroading activity, a hobby that I've been enjoying ever since.

I modeled in N-scale (1:160) from about 1978 to 1980, and then continued again in 1999 until 2008. During the summer of 2008 I decided to switch scales from "N" to "S" (1:64). The primary reason being that the smaller scale has become hard to see, especially the tiny road numbers on the sides of engines and freight cars. Also, even though N-scale today is significantly better than it was in the late 1970's, the contact surface between the wheels and the rails is so small that engines still operate with some stammering. It just became too frustrating and no longer enjoyable. Since switching to S-scale, I've been enjoying the hobby again. I just keep thinking "why didn't I switch sooner?"

A note about the web site itself... If you want to print a page for your own use, I would recommend setting the page format to "landscape", because I use rather wide pages to maximize the usefulness of the photos I include on the pages. Also, some browsers support the "Shrink to Fit" option, which seems to show both the text and image. The bottom line is, you may need to play around with your print settings to get the page to print nicely.

Trivia: Me helping Frank tear down his N-scale layout, and later rebuilding a very nice HO-scale layout. I built the new benchwork in individual sections so that the layout would, theoretically, be able to be moved. I also did most of the wiring work. Frank did the track design, track installation, and scenery and structures. A couple of the structures on the layout are Ria's handiwork.

Below is a list of topics that may or may not be of interest to you. If you have a comment or a question, feel free to .

Enjoy,
    - Peter