Like a great many of the membership of the NMRA, I was introduced to model railroading at an early age, receiving my first train set at my first Christmas in December 1948 when I was 7 months old!  My father was a master machinist and modeler in his own right and by the time I was nine he had built a small shelf layout, primarily to test his scratch-built HO brass steam locos.  At that time, I became fascinated with the daily operations of the railroad, a passion I still retain.  A relocation because of my dad’s job change led to a new layout, the traditional 4 x 8 in my bedroom; this was eventually followed by a third shelf layout which would claim half of a two-car garage.  In the late 1950s and early 1960s we used TruScale wooden roadbed, with my dad and I hand laying not only the track, but Daddy scratch built his switches as well.  The amount of trackage laid, as well as the number of rolling stock available to the railroad, was limited as a result.  Then I reached the teenage years with a subsequent competition from other interests as I entered high school. After high school graduation, I left home to attend college.  That ushered in the armchair model railroader era which lasted thru active duty with the army, graduate school, courtship and two relocations as I advanced in the college faculty ranks.  As a university professor of American history, my professional interest and my modeling interests have dovetailed nicely.  Finally, with the purchase of our first house, management deeded the one car garage area for my sixth layout, an around the perimeter shelf layout.  Solving the myriad construction problems associated with that layout prepared me for the next house with a two-car garage!  The seventh version of the Texas and Southern is a proto-free-lance class one railroad set in 1966 which connects Kansas City and Corpus Christi.  I model a portion of the Lee Subdivision with two staging yards.