All aboard for model train experience in Fenwick
In an innocuous old white schoolhouse in Fenwick a whole new world awaits.
A world where trains chug along the Fenwick Main Line, passing picnickers and factories, busy city streets and dusty stretches of country roads, all in 1:87th scale.
That meticulously detailed and expansive world will be open to the public for two weekends this month as Greater Niagara Model Railroad Engineers holds open houses, inviting the community into its 1141 Maple St. clubhouse.
“We want to show the public the hobby,” said club member Dave Stremlaw, explaining how the club’s roughly 15 members are always working to expand and improve the miniature world they have created over more than 40 years they have operated in Fenwick.
The landscape, based loosely on the Niagara countryside of the 1950s, is immensely elaborate, and, if that wasn’t enough, the members take running the trains on the nearly 120 metres of mainline track seriously. A computer spits out schedules of shipments and destinations to a dispatcher who calls down to engineers running their trains.
The whole thing runs like a real rail system when the club meets. With all that focus and effort, Stremlaw said it only makes sense to share the club members’ creative exploits.
“It’s a way for us to kind of brag and give back at the same time,” said Stremlaw, adding it’s a joy to see kids darting back and forth in awe of the tiny world before them. “They are always enthused.”
The public open house will see members running trains as a fully operational rail system and, as in years past, will feature a scavenger hunt for kids to seek out some of the more peculiar details of the landscape, such as Bigfoot or a crashed plane.
The open house runs noon to 4 p.m. on Nov. 17, 18, 24 and 25. The clubhouse will also be open during the Pelham Santa Claus Parade on Dec. 8 noon to 3:30 p.m.