Taking to the tracks...

This is Making Tracks, the new blog of myself, James R.W Hayward.

I'm hoping to use this blog for writing about a multitude of things, but if the title didn't give it away, railways are going to feature quite a bit. 

Why railways though? Other than the present, where I work on the railway [specifically the High Speed 1 division of SouthEastern Railways out of St Pancras], I have personally been interested in railways, trains, and the idea of travel since a young age. Like many, I started with Thomas the Tank Engine, and graduated onto an interest in the real thing. That said, even as a now 21-year-old Creative Writing student, I still have an admiration for the works of the Rev. Awdry, as to me his work represents one of the best examples of creating and writing about a fictional railway; designing a world from the ground up and building on it as the Thomas universe developed.

As a result of this interest, I have many items of rail memorabilia, including many books, videos and of course models of trains; My main 2 layouts [currently deconstructed and in storage] are in the British Hornby 00 scale, and the Japanese TOMY Tomica/Plarail scale; These layouts, when assembled represented Britain and Japan's railway's respectively.

Other than railways, my main interests include hobby modelling, the culture of Japan, anime, manga, cosplay, travel, home-brewing, film and television, learning, engineering and electronics & video games, among other things. 

So, with the introductions done, I am pleased to declare my blog, Making Tracks open.

Next time, a railway history lesson, and the beginning of a whole new world - within a single room!

That's all for now - Catch you later!
James R.W Hayward