Trains have fascinated me
ever since I was a child. Growing up in the American Midwest, I often counted
freight cars while we waited at crossings in our small town. My parents gave me
a starter model railroad set for a Christmas present when I was 6, and my
father and I worked on it together well into my teenage years. When I moved to
Germany after University, I was able to renew my love for trains with my own
sons, whether riding the high speed rail across the country, or visiting Berlin’s
Transportation Museum or Hamburg’s Miniature Wonderland model railroad. I even bought them wooden train sets
while they were still babies, in anticipation of the time they would be old
enough to build elaborate tracks covering our living room floor.
