Get on board for the Train Show
Young or old, almost everyone loves trains. There’s a certain mystique attached to the “iron horse” in all its forms, dating all the way to the days of the National Dream and long before even then.
No surprise then that there was a steady train of railroad fans streaming in and out of the Clarence-Rockland Arena over the April 25 weekend for the Fourth Annual Ottawa Train Expo, though it might not be running under that name much longer. Fred Adams, event founder and chief conductor, is thinking of renaming it since the Train Show seems to have found a new home station in Rockland.
“That’s what we’re hoping for,” Adams said during a Sunday interview, adding that he is considering Rockland Express as the new station handle for the event, given the warm welcome the Train Show has received from both the community and local businesses, including its main commercial sponsor, the Giant Tiger chain of department stores.
Inside the arena, the main ice pad was crowded with displays of various scalemodel railway dioramas, complete with miniature engines pulling long trains of boxcars, flatcars, passenger cars, and cabooses around and around, over little hills and through miniature tunnels. Competing for attention were demonstrations of model railway diorama construction with model train enthusiasts building scaled-down versions of trestle bridges out of salvaged basswood and brass wire and other materials, or cutting with care and then assembling buildings and other scenic pieces for part of a future village or stations setting.
There were dealers in collectible books and magazines about railroading and model trains, and for philatelists, a display of cancelled stamps from some of the old mobile train post offices that used to service isolated villages along the lines. A Thomas the Tank Engine display and one of a Lego village train setup drew lots of attention from would-be railroaders of all ages.
“Everybody loves seeing a train,” said Adams, about the passion of model railroading. “It’s the sound, and everything about them. I myself grew up with railroad trains passing by my house. Some of these displays are amazing. You can almost see the (miniature) people get up and walk.”
A portion of every admission to the Ottawa Train Show will go to the Roger’s House program at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. The program provides respite service for families of children at the hospital who need 24/7 medical care and, in some cases, end-of-life support.
After the last train enthusiast had left on Sunday, and after a bit of time to recuperate after supervising the breakdown of all the diorama displays and vendor booths, Fred and Monique Adams had a chance to tally up the gate numbers and the benefit proceeds from Rockland’s first model train exposition.
More than 2700 visitors spent the weekend at the Train Show and the event raised more than $2400 to help the Roger’s House program at CHEO.