By Brian Trompeter
Electric model trains made a steady din as they chugged around tracks, blew their whistles and passed through miniature towns Aug. 24 at Oakton Library.
National Capital Trackers, a regional group drawing most of its membership from Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., transformed the library’s front meeting room into a massive O-gauge layout packed with details to pique the interest of every age group.
Falls Church area resident Judy Mierisch brought her 3-year-old daughter, Grace Savoy, to the display. The child smiled widely as the trains trundled past and she extended an arm over the tracks so as to wave her hand through chemically produced smoke puffed out by a steam engine.
Mierisch had a model train when she was a child and said she was impressed by the group’s display.
“I like how they set it all up, reminding us of the days when trains were the main transportation,” she said.
The 16-by-24-foot display looked as though it took days to assemble, but it actually required only three hours. The reason: Club members participating in the mobile display brought their own 4-foot-long segments, which all were 40 inches high and had three track sections lined up in exact positions, allowing the modules to be arranged in myriad ways to fit the venue.
“We rarely do the same thing twice,” said club member Frank Hale of Haymarket.
For each of the group’s displays, a track master assigns places in the layout for members’ segments, starting with the corners. The modules vary from 18 to 30 inches deep, so members may customize their scenery. The club owns the corner segments, power cabinets and some other equipment, but the modules and trains belong to members, Hale said.
(The club’s methods differ from those of Northern Virginia Model Railroaders, which operates a permanent layout at the Vienna Train Station.)
Established in 1990, the non-profit National Capital Trackers has about 80 members and puts on roughly 20 shows per year.
Model-train layouts derive much of their charm from the scenery set up around the tracks. The club’s members sometimes do winter scenes or holiday-related dioramas, said club president Don Hemmer, who lives in Chesapeake Beach, Md. Members who participated in the Oakton Library display supplied mostly scenes related to industry and small towns.
The model trains moved past old-fashioned stores and train stations, water towers, oil derricks, a post office, petroleum-storage tanks – even a Starbucks cafe. Some layout modules featured miniature people and vehicles ranging from modern pickup trucks to graceful, swooping sedans common in the 1940s and ’50s.
Bill Knapp of Kennett Square, Pa., brought three layouts featuring many tracks, trains and buildings. He has been involved with model trains since 1952 and long has used three-rail O-guage equipment, which he said is easier to handle than the smaller HO-scale trains and tracks that are mainstays of hobby stores.
Club members brought along a display showing various model-train gauges, ranging from puny T to wide Standard gauge.
Hale brought in some unusual elements, including 16 feet of separate trolley line, which was elevated on trestles. One of his modules had a bridge vaulting over a real waterfall below. A colleague remarked to a visitor how heavy the waterfall’s “rocks” were, but these turned out to be lightweight Styrofoam painted brown.
The trains also reflected their owners’ individuality. One had a black-and-orange Harley-Davidson theme, with multiple cars having motorcycle motifs and one showing video images of the iconic bikes. Another green-and-yellow train was decked out in National Capital Trackers logo.
One of Hale’s cars was a tall aquarium with plastic fish swimming around. He previously used one with live fish, but desisted after some observers objected.
Some of the trains were pulled along by replicas of diesel engines, while others had miniature versions of old-fashioned steam engines, the metal wheels of which were powered by pistons. One of the club’s members, who did not participate in the Oakton event, has a Lionel replica of Amtrak’s high-speed Acela train, Hemmer said.
“It’s like the European-style where they put an engine on each end and they look exactly the same, so they can operate the train in either direction and it looks correct,” he said.
A low, clear-plastic barrier prevented viewers from accidentally bumping into the layout and damaging the trains and other equipment, but adults easily could peer over it.
“In theory, it’s supposed to keep little hands from reaching in and messing with the trains,” Hemmer said of the plastic shield. “But sometimes you have to tell the parents not to touch the trains. Not to be mean, but you don’t buy $50 engines anymore.”
That’s an understatement. Some of the newfangled engines with whiz-bang electronics retail for up to $2,000, members said. Most other cars, fortunately, start around $20, they said.
“The old days of using a handle and a transformer to operate the trains are over,” Hemmer said. “There are a couple of guys in our club who still do that, but most of us do not. Everybody uses their phone or their tablet. You download an app and you run your trains – because everything’s an app, right?”
The layout’s “geezer gate,” so-called because it saves aging members from having to stoop low to get out of the central control area, swings up like a drawbridge.
Hemmer has been involved with the club for about 10 years.
“It’s just a fun thing to do,” he said. “It’s great to see the kids and adults come to talk about how they had a train as a kid. It’s not too late. You can have another one. It’s like anything else. You catch the fever.”
To learn more about National Capital Trackers, contact the group at info@nattrackers.org.
