12/14/2006

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
Northern Michigan Railroad Club member Bill Parrish picks up an O-gauge locomotive from the club’s display at its fourth annual swap meet and sale at the Grand Traverse Academy.

Men, women and their toys

Model railroading a passion for many

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

Record-Eagle/
Jan-Michael Stump
Rolling stock cars on display at the Northern Michigan Railroad Club's fourth annual swap meet and sale.

TRAVERSE CITY — Maybe it's the miniature engines that belch lifelike "steam,” or the miniature towns and villages they chug past on their way to nowhere.

Whatever the appeal of model railroading, Paul DeLange has been a slave to it all his life. Now his collection of large-scale trains and accessories is so extensive that he uses a trailer to haul it in.

"Let's put it this way,” said DeLange, 65, of his lifetime investment. "We could have put a kid through college.”

A retired senior chief with the U.S. Navy Submarine Force, DeLange is one of an estimated 500,000 Americans — mostly men over 40 — who participate in model railroading, according to the Model Railroad Industry Association. Together, they spend $500 million annually, a figure that is rising as Baby Boomers with more leisure time and discretionary income discover the hobby.

Some construct layouts with trains, tracks and scenery that are accurate scale representations of real life. Others collect less finely detailed antique and reproduction toy models. Then there are "garden railroaders” who create outdoor settings with larger scale trains.

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
An O-gauge runs past Paul DeLange.

DeLange, of Bellaire, is among the first group. A member of the Northern Michigan Railroad Club, he helps out at club events like this month's Festival of Trains in Traverse City, runs the Alden Train Show each August and takes part in train shows in Virginia, where he and his wife spend the winter. His standard-gauge layout is displayed on a run-around shelf in their front room.

"I've been involved in trains all my life,” he said. "We always had it set up around the Christmas tree. It's kind of a tradition; the boys always got trains because there weren't any video games or TVs. And it just grew from there.”

Reggie Horning, 41, is a "recreational” hobbyist who inherited his love of trains — along with the trains themselves — from his father and grandfather.

"I couldn't open up my train on Christmas morning until my grandfather came,” recalls Horning, an elementary school teacher at Grand Traverse Academy and "conductor” of NMRC's annual swap meet, a fund raiser for the Festival of Trains.

For a time, Horning owned a Lionel dealership on Eighth Street. Now he's spreading his enthusiasm to his daughters: Stephanie, 12, and Lauren, 5. Together, he and the girls re-do their train set every year, changing the layout and building new "scenery” — the tiny people, animals and structures that help make it realistic.

"For a short period of time it got out of control and then I got rid of the excess and now it's strictly what my daughters and I have,” he said. "We have a rule now that if we buy something new, something else has to go.”

DeLange and Horning are typical of many model railroaders for whom the hobby evokes the toys of their youth while offering them a challenge. But it's young people who are the future of model railroading, they say.

"It's like everything else,” said DeLange, who bought a train for his granddaughter when she was born. "It's always the generation after you that's going to take it up.”

Long Lake Elementary student Zack Zywicki bought his first, "beginners” train set at Horning's store when he was 5 or 6 and adds on whenever he can.

A "junior engineer” and the youngest of NMRC's nearly 40 members, the 11-year-old estimates he's spent more than $2,000 on the four tables of trains and accessories in his family's basement, including his favorite, a coal loader. To earn money for them, he helps pump septic fields for his grandfather's company.

Like many younger hobbyists, Zywicki said he's most attracted to the visual and sound effects of model trains, such as steaming engines, blowing whistles and flashing railroad crossing lights.

"I like the shapes and the noises they make,” he said.

If Zywicki is the club's youngest member, Hillerie Rettelle is its most inevitable.

Three years ago she married into a model railroading family that includes husband Dan and father-in-law Don, creator of the train layouts for Ace Hardware on W. Front in Traverse City.

She also collects Hot Wheels cars and is the sole female member of the Grand Traverse Diecast Club.

"At first I thought it was different, because you don't usually see a bunch of men playing with toys — and that's what it is — but it's been a lot of fun,” said Rettelle, 30, who now sets up a train around the family Christmas tree every year. "You've got to have a passion for it.”

While Rettelle is passing along that passion to her three children, ages 8 through 12, DeLange's hobby hasn't rubbed off on any of his — or on his wife.

"She puts up with it,” he said. "I bought her a shirt from one of the train shows that says, 'Pray for me. My husband collects trains.'”

The Festival of Trains opens Saturday and continues through Jan. 1 at the Grand Traverse Heritage Center. Hours are 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Saturday except Christmas and noon-4 p.m. Sunday and New Year's Day. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and $2 for children 5-12. Kids under 5 get in free. For more information, visit www.nmrrc.org. or call 995-0313.