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About

Contact details

Mail:
Alias: Garrattfan
Real name:
Country Netherlands
Languages

Fluent in Dutch, English, German both written and spoken

Some French both written and spoken

Some understanding of written Norwegian, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

But feel free to write in your own language. I will find a translation

 

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Me and one of the Harz-mallets, September 2015

During a walk on the
Kampina moors

My real life name is . I was born in 1958, married, three children, two grandchildren, no dog ;-). We live in the Netherlands in a modest house. Being educated in chemistry originally I now work at NS, the Dutch Railways, as a business consultant in ICT. Working at a railway company and having a model railroading interest is sheer coincidence, by the way. Believe it or not.

 

I have many interests and hobbies, theology, classical music, psychology, sociology, photography to name a few. My wife and I regularly walk in scenic areas. The left photo shows me on the Kampina moors during a 18 km walk.

I like biking and long distance walking. I walked the Pieterpad (about 490 km, the longest long distance trail in the Netherlands) with my oldest son in stretches of about 30 km every day. More recently my youngest son and I took a hut tour of six days through the Dolomites, Northern Italy, from Bressanone (Brixen) to Corvara.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hugging Double Fairlie Spooner at the York
National railway Museum

I've been busy with railroading roughly since my 13th. I modeled in N-scale and tried some kit bashing in my early years. Not much came of it, usually terminating activities half way. Interest waned during my study years, we got married, we got children etc. etc. The usual story I guess. I always wanted to re-enter the hobby but apart from an occasional visit to a local station on holidays nothing much happened. But when I started my job at NedTrain, the then subsidiary of the Dutch Railways responsible for maintenance of rolling stock, my interest revived and I got going again. I had the time, the money and and regained my interest.

I got my first kit in 2004 for my birthday from my wife. Since then I've steadily been working on collecting and building models of steam locomotives. I am not a quantity builder, in 2019 I started my ninth model. Eight locomotive models in fifteen years is not impressive. But remember model railroading is fitfth in the priority line after God, wife and family, church, work, hobby. And it should always be fun, to relax a bit. As soon as the modelling gets on my nerves I let it rest until I find a solution to the particular problem.

My ultimate dram is building a model of the LTM 51 Garratt and when writing 2021 I am actually doing that.