A PASSION FOR MODEL TRAINS
All aboard! Club to host open house
All aboard — but only if you’re really, really tiny.
The Essex County Model Train Club is hosting its second annual open house this weekend and member Jim Walton hopes the event will help others catch railway fever.
“This is a sickness,” Walton said of the hobby. “But we want to spread the virus.”
The club has 25 members — the youngest just turned 22, and the oldest is about to turn 85. But they all share a love of model trains and are ready to share their expertise with newcomers.
“Many of the people involved in the club had no previous background whatsoever,” Walton said. He tells the story of one member who got so frustrated with his train layout that he felt like quitting, but the other members came to his rescue.
“I’m not normally a club person because you get politics sometimes,” he says. “But in our case, there’s none of that. We all co-operate, and we all help each other.”
The club’s website boasts that its layout is one of the largest in Southwestern Ontario with more than 400 feet of double-tracked main line. The club started in 2013, and by the end of that year it had tables constructed and trains beginning to move. Every member gets their own module — or section of the layout — to play with creatively.
Walton said he inherited his love of trains from his dad. “I got my first train at Christmastime in 1958, and I’ve been interested ever since,” he said. “It’s been sort of a family thing. My father was interested in model trains and of course that just passed on to me.”
That love of model trains is being passed on to the next generation now, with members of the club often bringing their children or grandchildren to see the trains.
But the open house isn’t just for the love of the craft.
“We’re unabashedly asking for donations,” Walton said with a laugh. The club is a not-for-profit, and while admission to the event this weekend is free, there will be a can floating around for visitors to make a contribution.
The open house runs Feb. 25-26 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 197 Lansdowne Ave. in Kingsville.