For many, models remind us of a bygone era

TRURO, N.S. — While Rod Norrie and his grandson, Nathan Kavanagh honour their local history, Truro is home to other model railroaders preserving their links to a bygone era.

In his younger days, Barry Wyle worked as a railcar man, inspecting freight trains and making repairs to their cars as needed. Once the work dried up in Truro, he continued his job in Halifax, working until 2005.

“I was going to derailments, operating the crane and the hydraulic gear,” said Wyle. “That’s one thing I like about model railroading – when the cars go off the track you just reach over, pick them up and put them back on, as opposed to working with a crane.”

Today, he is a member of the Truro Model Railroaders Association, which runs club nights in a basement room at the Nova Scotia Community College’s Truro campus. There, Wyle showed off a functioning model set with an oval-shaped rail circuit, its tracks surrounded by modelled hills of green grass and clapboard houses nestled among the trees. One such building is an art studio with a V-shaped roof and wide windows, giving a view of people inside working on paintings.

“It just keeps railroading alive,” said Wyle.

However, the title of most impressive model railway arguably belongs to Howard Maclellan, who converted the basement of his Truro Heights home into his private marshalling yard. Starting in a downstairs closet, Maclellan made a hole in his wall to extend his rail network into the basement. Since 1995, Maclellan has built up his 1950s-themed railway network, which features steam engines making the same unmistakable chuffing and whistling sounds as the real thing.

His locomotives are a labour of love. Often, he obtains used models from people who have passed away or at shows, and paints them with intricate detail. Maclellan also fixes model train engines damaged in crashes.

Once restored, his locomotives are put to work hauling both freight and passenger cars through a landscape dotted with models of red-brick downtown streets lined with telephone poles, typical of the eastern United States. For the terrain, Maclellan uses real vegetation taken from the garden. Small pine twigs and branches represent trees.Maclellan chose to set his model rail network in 1950s America, a time railways were still a popular mode of travel. However, the automobile was starting to make inroads, as seen with his model roads and level crossings adorned with models of antique cars and the odd semi-trailer.

During that decade, the Eisenhower Administration ordered the building of America’s freeway network, helping to drive a post-war economic boom.

“Railways were such a powerful mode of transportation and moving goods, so it left me wide open for a different selection of cars and models,” said Maclellan.

While steam engines take pride of place on Maclellan’s railway, he also uses diesel locomotives. Controlling multiple trains at the same time is easy, as he uses a digital cab control console wired up to the tracks to move his trains around.

With the newer DCC control system, which was first rolled out for model railroaders in the early 2000s, multiple trains can be run at all speeds and in all directions on the same track.

For enthusiasts like Maclellan, model railroading is by no means child’s play.

“We don’t say people play with trains. We operate them.”