ON THE RIGHT TRACK
Retired engineer Al Welch went from working in the nuclear field to working on miniature trains and rail lines,
Al Welch, a retired engineer who worked in the nuclear field, still has a love of building things.
He no longer designs nuclear stations. Instead, he works on little trains and rail lines.
The 78-year-old Etobicoke resident is a longtime member of the York Railway Modellers Club, at Wilson and Oakland Aves. in North York. He joined in 2003 and visits almost daily.
“It’s quite an interesting hobby because there’s different aspects to it,” he said from his workstation at the club.
He said there’s an artistry to designing and building rail lines and stations.
“I’m not interested in watching trains run,” Welch said.
Welch is currently busy building a replica of the former West Toronto rail station, which had stood at Annette and Dundas Sts. from 1912 until it was demolished in the 1980s.
All the existing stations at the club are replicas of southern Ontario stations from the 1950s.
To build West Toronto station, Welch is working from old photographs of the real one. He drew up plans for the sta- tion and is now constructing it out of wood, using a laser cutter to cut the bricks and a 3D printer for the windows.
He expects the entire project will take him around two years to complete, which he hopes to wrap up in the next six months. When it’s built, there’s a spot waiting for it. Some tracks will have to be moved to make it fit.
“I’m a guy who likes to build them exactly as it was in real life,” he said. “They have to find a spot for it.”
The club runs an HO scale model railway with approximately 700 feet of track depicting southern Ontario rail operations from the 1950s. The club’s members own hundreds of engines and freight cars, all of which are models of real-life cars. Welch himself owns about 15 locomotives and 50 cars.
The club rents its space in a small industrial building owned, coincidentally, by the Delaware & Rutland Model Railroad Club, which has its own layout next door.
The York Railway Modellers will have an open house this Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 5 Oakland Ave. Admission costs $5 per adult or $1 per child. While you’re there, you can also check out the Delaware & Rutland club.