trains are stored and a working turntable guides the engine of choice onto the proper track.
There is a hard working coal loader from the 1950s and a scrap iron crane and water tank
from the 1940’s. They were Jim’s as a youngster. He’s been a model train enthusiast since
he was a child, collecting and adding pieces over the years. On a wall in his train room, he
has a year by year sequence of pictures that show the development of his SML project. He
drew the design in 2007 and expects to have the entire scene finished to his satisfaction
by next year. He’s very fussy. He had to point out spots where landscaping needed to be
added or completed as, to the untrained eye, the display appears to be finished down to
the last detail.
“It’s a winter hobby,” Jim, who enjoys spending warm days on the lake, explains.
Jim runs his trains using a wireless radio signal that “talks” to a little chip in each engine.
The digital control system produces sounds which are eerily real and send a thrill through
your body. His layout control panel looks like it belongs in a TV production room. From
that mass of control switches he can do a continuous run with his trains or switch from one
track to another. Of course, all these model trains have smoke rising from their stacks and
headlights that flash while that haunting whistle blasts and the engine chugs in rhythm to
the turning wheels.
Herbert’s city took a similar length of time to develop. He’s been building it for six years
now. The difference is he built and assembled each piece of scenery himself, including every
tree, bush, and even lawns. His attention to detail includes a tiny newspaper in an outside
privy and a funeral with a widow in black being comforted by a pastor at a family cemetery.
His trains, which are HO-gauge, are half the size of Jim’s O-gauge. The gauge of a model
train is the distance between the track rails and the scale is the size of the model in relation
to the real world train. HO-gauge trains are 5/8 inch wide between rails with a scale of
1:87, which means each inch equals 87 inches on its life-size model.
“It’s a winter
hobby,” Jim,
who enjoys
spending warm
days on the
lake, explains.
Discover Smith Mountain Lake
Winter 2015
16
