Model train enthusiast keeps passion alive at Old Threshers

MT. PLEASANT - For many exhibitors at the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion, steam engines and tractors are a fun hobby, but for Fred Hansen his enthusiasm for trains goes beyond the label of a hobby. Building and fixing model trains has been a lifelong passion that stretches back to his childhood.

Hansen, along with his brother-in-law Ed Newlan, are participating in the 2019 Reunion, which runs from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, by exhibiting three model trains. Hansen, a 68-year-old retired skill trade machinist, has attended the event almost every year, beginning in 1983. He travels with his wife, Debbie, from Peoria, Illinois for the Reunion, and like many other families, uses the event as an opportunity to get together with relatives who live in different states across the Midwest.

'My two kids usually get out here. We've got 11 grandchildren and a couple of them come up too.”

In addition to seeing family, for Hansen, the joy of Old Threshers is all in his model trains.

'I get to play with my toys,” Hansen exclaimed gleefully when explaining why he enjoys coming to Old Threshers.

'I can't lay track in my home and it's no fun watching a train go in circles. It's like watching a record player spin without it playing music,” he explained further. Old Threshers allows Hansen an opportunity to truly exercise his love for his model trains.

Hansen's love affair with steam engines began at eight-years-old when his father brought home a train set, which Hansen watched eagerly get built in their home's basement.

'That was it,” Hansen said, 'I fell in love.”

'Everyone has something that they love to do with their hands, that makes them think. Mine happens to be model trains.”

Hansen's trains are situated right at the drop-off and pickup location for the steam engines that circle the grounds with visitors. Next to the larger trains, Hansen's models look like tiny toys for children.

'They're exactly the same as the big ones that go around. Their engines are all the same, just on a smaller scale,” Hansen says of the tiny locomotives that barely reach his shins. However, looks can be deceiving. While at first glance the trains look as if they are only for show, they can actually carry full grown adults.

As he explained how his trains work, Hansen sat down in the front most carrier of his steam engine, knees to his chest, and pulled a lever, which propelled the vehicle into motion. The train ran until the end of the track, at which point Hansen pulled the lever again and the train began moving backward.

'So easy, even children can operate this thing. I had a two-year-old once run it,” Hansen said.

Hansen is a human encyclopedia on trains and steam engines. He can recite the history behind the discovery of steam power and can explain, piece by piece, how the engine of vehicle works. As he looked out into the Old Threshers exhibit grounds, he could point to a vehicle and give an estimate on when it was built and how its engine runs. He seems to turn into a kid at a candy store as he stands among the vehicles at the grounds.

'It's about understanding things that came before me,” he noted, explaining why Old Threshers is so enthralling and important.

'Many of these tractors and engines don't exist anymore, but Old Threshers allows people who have kept these things up and running, to show other people how it works, what it did,” he added.

Beyond bringing Hansen out to Old Threshers year after year, his love for trains also lead him to his wife.

'I started with HO trains, then I joined a club and then I met Ted, my father-in-law, at a show and saw this pretty little lady sitting by herself. I went up to her to ask her for her number and she asked me, ‘are you going to use it?' and I said, ‘sure am.'”

Hansen credits his father-in-law for encouraging his interest in trains and for keeping his family coming to the Reunion year after year.

'Ted unfortunately passed in '06 but he came every year. Next year would have been his 65th year, if he were still alive.”

One of the trains Hansen and Newlan are exhibiting this year was bought by Ted in 1974.

'He really got me into this,” Hansen said.

Although neither of his two children show any interest in taking up the hobby, Hansen plans to keep making it out to Old Threshers until it stops being fun for him, which he doesn't predict will be any time soon.

'It still makes me happy and I can still get down on my knees and work on the trains so I plan to keep coming out here.”