Model railroaders draw crowd at fair

    The Washington Model Railroad Club has its own building at the fairgrounds in which to take refuge from the blazing sun. The club has been at the fair since Monday and will be there until Thursday, showing off its trains and other models in the building. The club can run a dozen trains at a time that are of different styles and sizes and from different eras in the history of the locomotive.

    The tables the tracks sit on are decorated with miniature farms, animals and model buildings to create a realistic Midwestern landscape. The interior is painted a sky blue complete with wavy green grass at the bottom and clouds sprinkled above. The building is divided into two halves, with large trains on one half and small trains on the other. Club member Gene Carpenter said the ?small? trains on one side of the building are of HO size (half of O-gauge, an early version of model railroads). The HO models represent real trains at a 1 to 87 scale.  

    A typical train in real life is about 100 cars long. Carpenter said 100 cars on a model set would be way too many. He said a model train with even 25 cars looks as if it goes on for a mile.

    Parts of the room represent depots and tracks in different cities such as Washington, Burlington, Muscatine, Rock Island, Chicago, Milwaukee and Kansas City. Carpenter said the model buildings reflect the cities as they were in the 1940s.  

    ?Some buildings have been repainted (after purchase) so they look more authentic,? said Carpenter. ?You can do what you want. The neat thing about this hobby is you can be as creative as you want to be. The sky is the limit.?

 For more, see our July 21 print edition.