Long ago I noticed that people enamored of cars often harbor another transportation interest. For many it is airplanes and I’ve met a few who dote on ships. Probably that largest dual constituency, however, favors cars and trains. One manifestation of this appears in elaborate model railroad layouts. Dennis David, the CarPort’s northwest Connecticut correspondent, recently attended the annual Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and brought back these photos.
Model railroad layouts demand more than trains and track, to achieve a degree of realism. Trees are helpful, buildings essential, but it takes model cars to fill out a world in miniature, be it streetscape or landscape. Some of the cars rival the finest collector models, and all of them appear in appropriate context.
As you’d expect, there are railroad stations, a roundhouse, grade crossings, fire houses, diners, fast food and factory buildings, each with its appropriate complement of cars and trucks. There is usually construction going on, leading to backhoes, draglines and post hole diggers. There are gas stations galore, and service stations and used car lots. We can see containers being loaded for a rail journey, and cars and tractors also on their railward way. The train show even had its own version of Wikileaks.
Familiar marques like Mercury, Divco, Greyhound and Checker were in abundance; less iconic but nicely detailed was a 1948 Ford convertible. Not all cars are that nice, though, for the layout comes complete with a junkyard.
Some features, like the drive-in theater, not only had real movies but replicated cultural icons in their own communities. There was a Big Top circus, with a full cast of performers, a Goodyear blimp, and a circle-track raceway, complete with little Miller racecars. And, for the record, NASCAR was not neglected.
These big layouts seem to run themselves, but in reality there’s someone in the background manning the controls. Dennis couldn’t resist putting himself in the frame, but he made sure to show us that the miniature train show comes with its own set of miniature railfans.
