Rockford Illinois Station detail crafted by Patrick Neely.
Mark Pelletier
Previous articles have often discussed how we run trains realistically, or shown pictures of residents and guests at our Open House events. But this month we’ll talk about the craft of model railroading. Did you know that our club is actually part of the PebbleCreek Creative Arts category?
There are many behind the scenes (pun intended) activities to our hobby. Creating a model railroad layout involves significant carpentry work to build the underlying benchwork. And then model trains are electrically powered, of course, but the hobby today also utilizes computer control for the locomotives. So there are a lot of electronics at work on (and underneath) the layout. Almost all the railroad cars – we have over 450 of them – were purchased as kits which have to be assembled. Some are quite simple and others very complex. Imagine installing the individual step rungs on the ladders on the side of a freight car!
When you visit us, you certainly note the many buildings and structures. These, too, are usually kits to be assembled – but a few are actually scratch built from wood and plastic components. Such a kit might be a complete building or start out as a set of modular walls, windows, roof sections etc. which can be crafted in endless custom combinations. We often use components like this to create a replica of a specific real-world building, or to create one to fit in an available space. Modelers practice selective compression to put a lot of activity in the limited space of the layout.
So there is a definite creative aspect to modeling above and beyond just putting things together. You see it in the details we try to add – people waiting at the station, kids playing at the ballpark, equipment and material on the dock at a factory, livestock on the hoof or meeting their fate at the packing house, trees and shrubbery and realistic rivers.
You may not realize that virtually all the towns and industries on the Great Lakes Western depict real locations and railroad customers. Extensive research goes into determining what to place on the layout, where it goes and how it interacts with all the other aspects of the model.
So the point is that a multitude of activity is available in our hobby: carpentry, electronics and computers, model construction, scenery creation and historical research to name a few. There is some activity at our club to satisfy many interests and talents. I personally do not have the best creative skills, so I’m the one who repairs freight cars. Yes, even model trains always need fixing just like the big ones.
Of course, lots of club members do like to run the trains, or even to just talk about railroading (of any size). But I hope you now see that there are many ways for members to enjoy having a model railroad club here at PebbleCreek. Come join the fun, or just watch us having fun. We are at the Room 106 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. And by the way, our next Open House will be at Easter; watch for details as it gets closer. On the web we are www.pcmrc.org.