By T.J. Hug
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
With the holiday season upon us, many tend to reflect upon their favorite memories of Christmas.
For some, that involves finding a model railroad under the tree. Children and parents alike have been known to spend hours watching the toy trains travel in circles around their living rooms.
The Montpelier Track Side Modelers do far more than that. They promote train history, inviting the entire county into their building, which they rent from the Montpelier Chamber of Commerce, in order to educate people on just how vital a role the railroading industry played in the development of the villages and towns of the area. They accomplish this with their Reading, Art, and History Program, which is open to all ages, young and old.
The club, founded by Don Mahan, created the group, currently at twenty-one members, so that people could share their passion for railroading, both in the modeling and historical aspects. Today, the inner walls of the building are adorned with the history of Williams County railroading. Former railroaders, as well as the families of those who have passed, have recalled many a fond memory while gazing at those walls.
Each member of the club has a specific skill set that can be used to better their track, or layout as they refer to it. Electricians, carpenters, technological experts, and artists all come together to create a truly impressive model landscape for their trains to run through. This would get pricey, were the cost not shared among the members.
Model railroading as a whole can be expensive, or cheap, depending on how detailed one wants to get, as well as if there are others working with them. Even the trains themselves have a broad price range.
“It can be real expensive if you want it to be.” Randy Bible, of the Track Side Modelers, informed.
Indeed, people seriously into the idea of model railroading have been known to spend as much as five-hundred dollars just to get started. That’s not necessary, however. A person could begin to build a collection for just one-hundred dollars. The brands with the best reputation are Atlas and Kato.
There are several scales of train available for purchase. The ideal size for building realistic scenery around is the 1/87 scale. At that size, a large room can provide a lot of track, and anything built around that track will be small, but not to the point of sacrificing detail.
This is the case with the Montpelier Track Side Modelers. With a track that runs the length of their huge room a few times, and the width once, their layout is filled with lifelike details and humorous anecdotes along the way. Ore mines with signs misspelled, in reference to the spelling woes of early miners, businesses built and named by members of the club, and even hobos who are preparing to eat a stolen pig line the path of passing trains.
If those railroads run the track in its entirety, without stopping, it will take them twenty minutes to complete their course.
That’s not what the Track Side Modelers do, however. At least not commonly. Instead, they run Operations, a new caveat to the model railroading hobby that allows those controlling the trains to simulate real locomotive activities. Portions of the Montpelier layout are interactive, as members of the club can load their train cars with various materials in need of shipping. They then transport the goods to locations throughout the track.
Then there’s Realistic Operations.
“Oh yeah.” Bible said enthusiastically. “It’s just like real railroading.”
Based off the simpler concept of Operations, Realistic Ops involves every person in attendance running their trains at the same time, each with their own specific missions. A dispatcher guides each railroad on their course, attempting to ensure no collisions take place. This can be a tall order, though, and accidents do happen.
There is more to layouts than Ops, or even the enjoyment of club members. Roughly two years ago, the Track Side Modelers have also built a portable track, which they take to the Bryan Hospital to entertain patients young and old. The track can easily be transported from room to room, and even floor to floor. They’ll be running it there on Christmas Day this year, bringing holiday cheer to those too sick to spend them at home.
Model railroading brings back old memories for prior generations,whether it be because they played with them in their childhood, or they worked for the real railroads in their life. The hobby can bring father and son together. It unites people with a common passion.
It brings people together.
The Montpelier Track Side Modelers will have an open house and garage sale on February 7, from ten in the morning to six in the evening, and February 8, from one in the afternoon to five in the evening.
T.J. Hug can be reached at
publisher@thevillagereporter.com