Day 28 - Go to a Model Train Club Meeting

Date: February 3rd, 2010

As hobbies go, building model trains is an absolute American classic.  It ranks up near soapbox derbies and boyscout troops on the Americana-o-meter (and significantly above croissants and Gitanes - just so you have a good frame of reference).  For the longest time I had a very Norman Rockwell-esque understanding of model train building.  It looked heartwarming, family-oriented and (to me at least) very two-dimensional.

 

Good Lord he's actually got a painting of a train station...

I saw a notice that the Ann Arbor Model Train Club was holding an open meeting last night and decided it would be a fun this to check out.  My last experience with a model train was ten minutes, two Christmases ago, looking at a present my ex-boyfriend's sister's boyfriend got.  So... I haven't... you know... spent a lot of time with them.  My general impression was that the allure was mostly in the mechanics of the train, how the engine worked and ran, the electric currents required to make the train run and other things like that.  You know, nerd stuff.

I couldn't have been more wrong.  At first I just walked around looking at things, but I quickly realized that I wasn't going to learn anything if I didn't start asking questions.  Usually I can just sponge it up when I go somewhere, but the whole model train scene was so far outside my expertise that keeping quiet wasn't going to cut it.  Luckily, there was someone there to show me the tracks. (Get it?  Like showing someone the ropes?  Its a pun.  Learn to deal.)

 

Meet Fabian Beltran.  He taught me about model trains.

We spent almost an hour walking around a relatively small building looking at the train set up that the clubbers had created.  Along the way, he stopped and explained a lot to me about the process of putting together a model train set up.  Perhaps the most shocking revelation for me was how little model train building actually has to do with trains.  Of the time I spent walking around the building with Fabian, only about ten minutes of it was about trains.  The rest of our conversation was spent talking about the scenery.  How it was built, what it was made out of, who painted the backdrops, what city it was supposed to represent etc...

That's when I realized - the model train club wasn't about the trains - it was about the models.  The membership in the model train club was about 90% made up of men in their 40s, 50s and 60s.  Growing up in America in the 1950s and 1960s, young men and boys were not encouraged to pursue artistic careers.  That isn't to say that there weren't male artists - of course there were.  However, the stereotypical male artist of the 1950s wasn't exactly something that people were encouraged to become.

 

Ronaldo!  You make your mother weep.

In the train club, I found a group of people who lived full, rich lives and still found time to pursue artistic passion.  By building these models, they were able to take some time for themselves, express their creativity and all without abandoning normal life for a two decade long hippie-love-fest.  The passion that Fabian described may have centered on trains, but it was about crafting an intricate and beautiful scene through which the trains could run.  He was especially delighted to show me the amusing easter eggs that members had worked in around the scenery.  I took pictures of my favorite ones to show y'all.

I truly hope that you guys will take some time to check out the model train club near you.  I think you'll find the same impressive level of passion, creativity and attention to detail by members of your community.  It was a surprise and a joy to have stumbled onto such amazing beauty where I least expected it.

 

That background was hand-painted.  It starts at the red house.

 

If you look closely, you'll see the corpse trying to escape the coffin.  Hilarious.

Off in the distance... its the Bates Motel.

The water is hand-poured and then it hardens.  

It was breathtaking in person.

(Then again, technically all water is breathtaking... get it?  

Ahh, you didn't get it.)

 

The coup de grace: 

An original, from scratch, model of the Gandy Dancer.

Compare to the real building:

I like the model better.  Though this one has better brie.

 

I absolutely adored my time at the model train club - much more so than I expected to.  They are having a show and exhibition on February 21st that I will hopefully be able to go to.  Fabian said there are folks that have built models out of Legos and they run their trains through it.  Seriously.  I'm going if only to see that.  It sounds like tripping the nerd fantastic and that's just fine with me.