Clinician: Dick Bronson

About the Clinician...

     I got my first train set over 70 years ago; the usual basic Lionel that mostly only got setup around the Christmas tree. Within a few years my folks bought me 3 lengths of HO flex track, the kind with fiber ties and staples holding the rails in place, and three freight cars that I equipped with operating Round House couplers. A few years passed until I earned enough spending money ($9.95 plus tax) to purchase my first engine, a Penn Line D-2 Switcher, which I still have. For a power pack I rigged a variable wire wound pot, a DPDT switch, and a pair of wires that went into the garage where they could be clipped to the battery in the family car.

     My first signal project was in 1954 at the MRR Club located at the San Mateo County fairgrounds, where I was a Jr. member. It was a solenoid operated semaphore triggered by track contacts. It operated OK for a short time until a contact stuck to its rail, and the whole thing got unceremoniously yanked out of the layout to prevent the resulting fire from spreading past the coils.

     Fast forward to the present, and I still am fascinated by railroad signals, and for the last 20 years we have been running RR-CirKits, Inc. to help others with similar interests to hopefully have better results than my first effort. As a result, my current layout doesn't get very much time spent on it, except when expecting visits from club members or grand children. Maybe we will produce an LCC operated semaphore signal controller, so that I can finally install an operating semaphore on my layout.