Nick Bulgarino – Past Officer

Nick Bulgarino has been a train enthusiast since the age of 3. Like all good Millennials, Nick began his interest in trains with Thomas the Tank Engine. This developed into an interest in British prototypes, where he followed the Great Western Railway and London North Eastern Railway. Nick became familiar with American prototypes through the B&O Railroad Museum, where he began learning about the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

In 2003, after the Nor’easter dropped 7 feet of snow in the Baltimore area and collapsed the roof on the Museum’s roundhouse, Nick and his 1^st Grade class took their first steps into the world of Railroad Preservation by creating a project called “Help Restore the Rails.” The project raised over $2,000 for the rebuilding of the roof.

As Nick grew older, he developed other interests, such as sports and music. Nick attended DeMatha Catholic High School, where he played varsity golf and played in their Wind Ensemble. Nick received his Bachelor of Music in Trombone Performance from the Eastman School of Music in 2018 and proceeded to get his Master of Music in Trombone from the Peabody Conservatory in 2020. He is an active freelance musician.

While at Peabody, Nick joined the Baltimore Society of Model Engineers. There, he started getting involved in the O Scale 2-Rail (OS2R) community and attended his first OS2R show: the April 2019 Strasburg Show. There, he purchased his first OS2R engine: a Westside B&O Q4b with water bottle. He proceeded to burn its coal load and unsolder the tank from the tender frame (yes, quite literally both!) due to not understanding insulated trucks. Since that experience, Nick has become an avid supporter and proponent of Dead Rail (Power Onboard) train control.

Nick is a member of O Scale Central, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Historical Society, and the National Model Railroad Association.

Nick models the Baltimore and Ohio’s Baltimore Division in 1948. He enjoys doing extensive research on the prototype in addition to enjoying the model building side of the hobby. He is building the Pratt Street Line, and intends to build a layout modeling the Old Main Line from Baltimore City to Brunswick, MD via his hometown of Ellicott City, MD, the original 1830 terminus of the B&O.