MODEL RAILROADING
A love affair in miniature
Published: November 29, 2009, 12:30 am
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Charles Neumann’s love affair with trains began in the mid-1930s when, as a youngster, he walked a block from his home in the Bailey- Walden neighborhood to watch as locomotives chugged into a repair yard.
“You had to be careful,” Neumann recalled, “because if those railroad [cops] caught you, you’d get heck.”
Flash ahead 75 years, and the retired school custodian is helping youngsters to appreciate trains and learn about Buffalo’s heritage in the process.
Neumann belongs to Rail Barons, a volunteer group that has built a train display gracing a room in the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. The exhibit of a 19th century village features more than 100 miniature buildings, many representing local landmarks. Several hundred people and animals are also depicted in scenes that range from a circus pulling into town, to a German band performing a concert.
Volunteers have spent thousands of hours making the models, and they add new features every year.
Three model trains made their way along 300 feet of track on Saturday, a sight that enthralled a 5-year-old Elma boy.
Jacob Riley Stewart’s firsthand experience with trains has been limited to riding Buffalo’s Metro Rail transit system. Jacob watched in fascination as the toy trains cruised past the Erie Canal, little red schoolhouses and an old icehouse.
Jacob’s favorite features were an old-fashioned carousel and Ferris wheel that can be set in motion by the push of a doorbell-like button.
The train display has been a holiday highlight at the museum since 1990. It attracted 237 visitors when it made its seasonal debut Friday. On Saturday, more than three dozen people had gathered around the exhibit within 15 minutes of its opening.
“It’s really cool,” said Alex Ehrenberg, 9, of Lockport. “The bridges and the little buildings are so cool.”
Alex was turned on to trains when he was 3 and saw Thomas the Tank Engine at the Medina Railroad Museum. Railroad buffs give a lot of credit to Thomas the Tank, Harry Potter, and “The Polar Express” for helping to foster a new generation of toy-train aficionados.
Buffalo was once a railroad mecca and had more miles of track than any other city in the nation, according to the Rail Barons. By some estimates, 80 percent of all Buffalo-area families have had relatives who worked in the rail industry.
The toy trains in the exhibit depict actual railroads and equipment that operated in the area. Among the structures that line the tracks are tiny replicas of the original Buffalo Forge Co., the Black Rock Bridge, the Eagle House and the water mill in Williamsville.
The exhibit is open every Saturday and Sunday through the end of February at the museum’s 25 Nottingham Court location. A volunteer from Rail Barons is always on site to share information about the display and talk about the region’s railroad heritage.
The Rail Barons hope to expand the exhibit in the future to include views of Buffalo’s waterfront as it looked in the 19th century. Neumann said one reason the display attracts repeat visitors is because people know new features are added each season. But with thousands of details to take in, spotting new elements takes a keen eye. The group has created a scavenger hunt that challenges folks to find everything from a group of men playing dice, to a black cat perching on a fence.
Some parents like that the display marries local history with railroad heritage, and even adds a dash of mechanical engineering.
“Alex has a little mechanical mind,” said Jeff Ehrenberg as he watched his son stare at the moving locomotives. “He always looks at how things work.”
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