Horace Schemer, known as just simply Schemer to his friends, is the owner and operator of the arcade at Shining Time Station. Schemer lives up to his surname by creating awkward and outlandish schemes which always seem to fail. In addition to his interesting wardrobe tastes, Schemer loves to collect nickels, especially from passengers who deposit them into the arcade machines. Other interests include a sizable comb collection. Schemer lives at home with his mother, and is known to have at least one sibling who lives out of town who is the parent of his nephew Schemee. Horace Schemer is the spitting image of his grandfather, Jebediah Schemer, and is fiercely proud of one prominent trait of the Schemer bloodline, the telltale curl on the side of his head. A follower of his own "Schemer's System of Success", which often if not always lands him into trouble, Schemer does occasionally reveal a caring side of personality to his friends. Schemer's clumsiness sometimes sends him tumbling to land flat on his face, though he manages to do so without any serious injury to himself. Schemer steadfastly believes Shining Time Station to be haunted, although his fears are largely due to the occasional unseen antics of Mr. Conductor and The Jukebox Band members, all whom he has never seen nor does he know exists. Schemer is the comic relief of Shining Time Station. As his surname implies, Schemer has a tendency to pull schemes and tricks to get his ways, which often backfire on him as a result of his foolishness, and can also be very greedy, especially with nickels. His roguish ways and mannerisms always irritate his very forgiving friends at Shining Time Station, and his scheming antics sometimes get the better of him because of his self-centered arrogance. Schemer is also the only one in Shining Time Station who is unaware of Mr. Conductor's existence, and the messes he makes are often undone by him. Sometimes, this leads Schemer to believe that Shining Time Station is haunted. Nonetheless, Schemer is well-meaning, and will always learn his lesson by the end of an episode. While his friends are more tolerant of his scheming antics, they never stop caring for him and hope he can learn to do the right thing, whether it is the easy way or the hard way. Sometimes, when his nephew and sidekick Schemee crosses the line of scheming, he knows when to be stern with him, with one of his methods of punishment being combing his curl down. In Schemer's Special Club, he stands up to Mr. Hume and kicks him out of the station for insulting his friends, proving that he truly does care about them.