Keeping train tradition on track Scale model railroad volunteers ensure engineer’s spirit lives on
In Jon Hollahan’s lifetime, before marriage and fatherhood, before cancer, there were trains.
He discovered trains as a toddler. He built model trains. He grewup to become a locomotive engineer with Florida East Coast Railway.
“To me, it was always like he was born [with] an engineer’s hat on,” says thewoman he married, Valerie Hollahan. “Like any kid, he was fascinated by them, but I think his fascination grew more than other kids’.”
In 1987, he and fellow live steamers persuaded the Broward County Parks and Recreation Division to lay tracks and build a station. Shortly after, the Tradewinds & Atlantic Railroad was born, and Hollahan and other volunteers started giving rides on miniature trains at Tradewinds Park.
In February, at age 54, Hollahan died from metastatic melanoma.
“He was a train man, always was and always will be,” says his widow. “Knowing him up there in heaven, he’s giving train rides to whoever will take them.”
Next generation
“All aboard!” KevinHollahan calls out to the families sitting in the little locomotive.
Wearing a black cowboy hat, Hollahan blows the horn, passengers brace themselves and the sleek purple-and-sliver train pulls away with a thump thump
thump on the track. Kids (and parents) squeal “wheeee” as the gas-powered locomotive loops around the pond at the Coconut Creek park.
Not long ago, Hollahan was one of those kids learning about railroads, trains, andthe pistonsandcylinders that make them go. Nowhe’s helping run the trains.
Kevin Hollahan, 20, not only inherited his father’s collection of live steam and diesel locomotives but also his love of trains.
“Supposedly, when I was born, that if the little model trains weren’t going around in the living room, I would immediately start crying,” says Hollahan, a Plantation resident. “My dad said that he spent a fortune fixing them for me because they had to be on 24 hours a day.”
Hollahan basically grew up at Tradewinds, and learned howto maintain and build the trains like his dad did.
“I was expected to be out here every month pulling passengers,” says Hollahan, his blueeyes lightingup. He’s wearing long sleeves and jeans to protect himself from the sweltering sun. “Trains were a constant inmy life. As I got older, more trains started popping up. ... Formy 10th birthday, I had a huge half-ton diesel locomotive thatmy father builtme. Iwas 14whenI got the steamlocomotive.”
Family vacations were planned around trains, ValerieHollahan adds.
“Jon always made sure thatwe alwayswentona trip on a train,” she says. “Kevin shares the same love and passion thatmyhusbanddid. Those two, sometimes on the weekends, they’d go down to the train yard, where they’d sit there and watch the trains go by.”
Now, Kevin Hollahan, a Broward College student who alsoworks as a machinist, and fellow volunteers help keep the train tradition on track.
“It just makes kids happy, andthat’swhatI enjoy,” Kevin Hollahan says as another train filled with rail fans rumbles by. Choo choo whistles the train.
“I bonded over it withmy dad, and a lot of kids bond over it with their parents. Kids like Thomas the train,” he says, referring to the iconic blueThomastheTank Engine. “We don’t have a Thomas, but they think our trains are Thomas. They are here to have fun, and they’re having fun, and that’s what matters.”
Filling a void
When Jon Hollahan became sick with deadly skin cancer andwas hospitalized, other Tradewinds volunteers picked up more of the workload. Michael Smith, who was vice president of the nonprofit, was asked to be president.
“Thiswas [Jon’s] life,” says Smith, a swimming-pool designer who joined the club about five years ago. “Is it under my control? No. It’s a bunchof guys that are volunteers, andwe’re just out here having fun. That’s all it is. When you see the smiles on the kids’ faces, that right there is what it’s all about.”
He’s been bringing his daughter Alexis to the tracks since she was about 12. Now 17, she’s qualified to provide rides. She also helps with credit card transactions, explains rules for the rides and loads passengers.
“I can run the diesel, I can run the electric. The only thing I don’t knowhowto do is run the steam locomotives,” says Alexis Smith, wearing a red-and-black checkered train-themed cap.
“It’s definitely something that has been passed as a hobby or as an interest. I am the next generation coming into this,” the Cooper City High school senior says as her dad monitors the model train rolling along on an elevated smaller track.
“She stepped up greatly when Jon was sick and would make him proud,” adds Michael Smith, 49, who wears train-themed overalls with black andwhite stripes. As the model train rumbles along, he points to a green Mountain Dew box car, a nod to JonHollahan’s love of the soda.
“Jonwas diabetic and had cancer but still had to have six cans of Dew a day,” says Smith, who has custompainted many of the model trains at the park.
‘Everybody’s happy’
The nonprofit group’s mission is to educate the public on the importance and history of railroads. Theydosoby providing fiveminute rides on these scale models. (If it’s your birthday, the trains go around the track twice.)
These little trains, about one-eighth the size of the real thing, travel around an
oval track about a mile long. More than 1,000 people come out every third Saturday and Sunday of the month for rides that cost $1.50.
Some trains hum like lawn mowers as they chug along. Fueled by steam, batteries or gas, they towcabooses and boxcars. Passengers sit on benches behind the engine. The trains are also compact enough to be loaded onto pickup trucks or trailers, which is how Kevin Hollahan and the other volunteers transport
them.
On the main line, which has Swamp Curve, a (surprise!) large Sasquatch figurine and a bridge, kids giggle as their ride loops around and chugs back to the station. But it seems like the volunteers are having as much fun.
Before pulling away for another run, volunteer Frank Vanak cracks jokes with passengers.
“Are you old enough to be on a train?” he teases an adult. Vanak, 57, is an electrician during theweekandhas
been with the train club for eight years.
“This is our escape. Everybody’s got problems, everybody has life difficulties that they have to put up with. Here, there are no problems. No religion, no politics to discuss. Just trains. Everybody’s happy,” he says as he navigates the train through a tunnel that houses a large fake spider. When the kids spot it, they laugh.
“Out here, we are all kids,” Vanak says as the train goes toot toot.