Where The Trains Run

I’ve had a model railroad for many years. I had one as a child and always remembered the enjoyment of running trains, switching cars at miniature industries, and forgetting the stress and stains of my day job. Some people watch TV, but I’m more prone to work in my garden or on my train layout. I’ve also had cats, and my cats have always loved the train layout, some more than others.
My large grey cat, Clancy, AKA the Grey Menace, considered himself a guardian for the layout. It was also his favorite place to sleep afternoons when the sun streamed in the window. He’d find a comfy place to snooze and curl up for a long nap. Two things about the Menace – you couldn’t easily or safely wake him when he slept, and he didn’t like surprises. Periodically, his habits obstructed work on the trains. I learned to just work around his habits and around him.
Once, I was going to lay out a location for a pond. But there he was, a large grey lump happily snoring, right where I had marked the bottom of the pond. Waking was out of the question. Lifting him out of the way would invite an attack on my hands and arms. So I took the coward’s way out and built the surrounding area of the pond with him in place. When he woke several hours later, it was to a pond scene of green grass, trees, and shrubs. All I had to do was finish the cat-shaped bottom of the pond.

Big Cat Mountain came about by a similar process. Clancy was sleeping on the tracks where I would build a mountain with a rail tunnel through it. I built the structure over and around him, leaving the back open so he could exit, and I’d have access to trains in case of a derailment. The mountain was made out of a wire frame with cardboard stiffening. Folded paper towels soaked in plaster covered the frame and created the rocks. Once hardened, it looked like a very believable mountain, except for the snoring cat beneath it. The cavern under Big Cat Mountain became a favored sleeping spot of his.
After Clancy, the tradition of cats and model railroading continued with Smidgen, Xenia, and now Sabrina and Marcus. Are the cats destructive? Occasionally, they can be scamps; Catzilla will occasionally walk the streets of the central city, disturbing cars and pedestrians. And a cat sleeping peacefully in inconvenient locations can still be seen sometimes.
But they generally seem just as interested in watching the trains run as I am.