About The Author

N Scale Modeling Author, Frank Giacobbe (and my Australian Shepherd, Logan)

For a long time, I’ve posted to this blog relatively anonymously, using only my WordPress screen name. I wanted to keep this blog informational and professional first and foremost and wanted to steer clear of a site that felt too personal. I wanted you, the reader, to know that this site can be a valuable resource for N scale modeling with content that you can’t really find somewhere else on the Web.

But as I hear from readers and start to communicate with several of you through e-mail, I’m surprised at just how connected I feel with the N scale community that stops by to read my posts. So, I’ve decided to finally post an About the Author page.

My name is Frank Giacobbe and I’m 35 years old (as of this writing).  My wife (and our two dogs) are based in New Jersey, just north of Philadelphia.

By occupation, I’m a Vice President for a communications company and my background is in Web design. I’ve been in the Web design industry for about 13 years and when I’m not working with trains, I’m either glued to my laptop or watching TV (Heroes or Battlestar Galactica preferably).

My first train set was HO scale as a child. I liked HO when I had it, but at the larger size, it was more about the trains and less about the surrounding scenery. Of course I didn’t come to that conclusion at the time, but I’ve learned that for me the real magic of model railroading is the scenery — being able to create, model and light up an entirely new world.

I hadn’t thought about trains in probably 20 years even though I have always built models from cars to helicopters to the Millennium Falcon. Then I saw a very small N scale layout in a local hobby store.  That’s when I realized I could do the trains and have enough scenery around it to create the magical city I had always wanted as a child.  And if done right, I’d really need the trains to complete the scene to bring the world to life.

So after telling my wife all about N scale, she bought me an N scale train set for Christmas a couple of years ago. I’ve been building structures ever since — working towards the vision of a 1940s major city modeled after New York and Chicago. I haven’t even considered planning the layout or track plan because I know I’m going to need a lot of structures to pull off what I’m looking to do.

Hopefully, you’ll continue to visit this site as I make my way through this adventure. I’m going to try to do things that people just don’t think are possible in N scale.  We’ll see how it goes and as I learn, hopefully you will too.

UPDATE: My wife wanted to know why I only had my one dog on my blog.  So…

Our other Australian Shepherd, Tara