Little trains have big pull

Model railroad buffs put hobbies in locomotion at show

RALEIGH -- Roland Waggoner's grandfather worked the New York Central Railway at a time when everyone knew someone who worked on the railroad.

Waggoner recalls watching powerful steam engines roar past, bearing tanks and supplies, during World War II. Now 70, the model train enthusiast still prefers model steam engines to electric or diesel versions, and O-gauge Lionel trains like the ones he found under his childhood Christmas trees to the smaller ones that are more popular now.

"That's all I saw, steam engines and lots of them all during the war," said Waggoner, secretary of the Neuse River Valley Model Railroad Club.

As for the rest of the thousands who went to the Train & Railroadiana Show this weekend at the N.C. State Fairgrounds, they found many reasons to love trains.

"We all have different ways to enjoy them," Waggoner said.

For some, it's collecting trains of a certain type or era. For others, it's building model trains or elaborate backdrops for their tracks.

The array of model train tracks at the Exposition Center on Sunday mesmerized everyone from toddlers hovering over a model of Thomas the Tank Engine to the seasoned enthusiasts who put on the 24th annual show.

Fifteen-year-old Chris Kornak, one of the Neuse River club's newest members, doesn't have the long ties to trains that many older members have. In fact, the sophomore at Southeast Raleigh High School can't say exactly what it was about the model trains that attracted him to the hobby.

But he does remember the effect his first electric train had as it rolled around a simple oval track.

"I would just sit there in my room and watch it for hours," he said.

Glen Frix, 47, loves the sights and sound of real trains, but he also relishes the minute details of model trains.

The electrical engineer from Denver, near Charlotte, used a computer drafting program to create a model of a section of N.C. State University, his alma mater. His creation was part of a massive track more than 300 feet around covered with everything from stores with actual mannequins in the window to an entire steel mill.

Frix's backdrop includes a to-scale version of Reynolds Coliseum with wire handrails for the staircases he made by hand. His 13-year-old daughter scoffed as he measured and re-measured the campus's Free Expression Tunnel that goes under the tracks.

It wasn't the first time his love of trains made him stand alone.

"Most of the people there hated the sound of the trains going by," he said of his time at NCSU. "I loved it."

Neil Gruber, a photographer who has specialized in photos of trains for four years, said part of the lure of trains is their actual mechanics, the massive piles of steel clanging along tracks. Another draw is historical.

"The railroad propelled this country into the Industrial Revolution, literally and figuratively," he said.