About Me

"Life is short. Go ride a train."
- Samuel D. Coykendall, probably

I'm Michael Lechicky. I like trains. I also like the Catskill Mountains. Once upon a time I started a garden railroad to marry those two objects of my heart... and called it Hillendale. Unfortunately, life got busy and now it's snoozing. But I still do Catskill railroad stuff.

The turn-of-the-century railroads of the Catskills were lines of singular charm and enchantment, tying secluded mountain heights with Hudson River ports. Yes, they despoiled the landscapes Cole and his buddies wanted to protect... but they also brought those mountains to average city folks in a way that was, at the time, unprecedented. How can you care about mountains if you've never smelled the scent of balsam in your own nose? So you could say, in a roundabout way, they played their own part in the birth of the American environmental movement.

Hillendale is Eastlake coaches and engines dripping in Baldwin green... one color that never found its way to the Catskills, because the Catskill railroads seemed allergic to Baldwins. One of their few shortcomings.

In my home state I'm a volunteer with the Phillipsburg Railroad Historians, Inc., where I am a student engineer on the Centerville & Southwestern Railroad, the world's only 9-7/16" gauge railroad and the third-oldest "Grand Scale" railroad in the country. When I'm not around railroads or questioning my life choices, I like to bird and sing.

Vauclain compounds are rad. Superheaters are pretentious.

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I'm working on a new project in which I do not think superheaters are pretentious. It's set in the 1960s, and follows the exploits of the owners and crew of a miniature railroad on a dairy farm. I soft-launched the page this spring, and it should hit its stride with character vignettes and short stories in 2027. Check it out: https://www.instagram.com/lilbeckertrain/