The second model railroad show at the Eagles large hall this past Saturday offered engines and cars of dozens of gauges and model offered for sale by hobbyists and sellers.
This show filled the promise of the March show, attracting even larger crowds than the earlier event.
The second show coincided with the Railroad Day celebration at Pacific Station Plaza where emcee Bryan Knight promoted the model train show and free shuttle service between the Plaza and the Eagles, which was operated by Bill McLaren, Pacific Partnership volunteer.
The models exhibited and offered for sale ranged from the tiny Z gauge to the big standard gauge. Model train layouts were set up with moving trains, giving would-be buyers an example of what they could do with their trains.
The Route 66 Model Railroad Club and Pacific Partnership hosted the show. Bob Bober co-chaired the event with Ron Sansone.
On North First Street, Johanna Schultz, Villa Ridge, added to the model train excitement by setting up her model train layout, along with cars and engines that she offered for sale, in the courtyard of her aunt’s coffee shop.
Schultz’s mentor is her grandfather Ronald Peters, a hobbyist who has set up a model railroad in his model shed in Villa Ridge.
“He has a layout that runs all the way around his shed,” she said.
Schultz’s moving stock was an HO gauge engine that she ran back and forth between a freight depot, passed a passenger station and a cross street to a second passenger station. She patiently sent the engine forward and backward for 4-year-old Andrew Borcherding, the great-grandson of a Pacific signalman, whose eyes followed the moving engine.
Items that were offered for sale were identified by small hand-lettered table-tents that identified the car and the cost.
“They’re actually my grandfather’s,” she said. “But he said I could keep whatever I made.”
The large model train show at the Eagles dovetails not only with Railroad Day celebration, but with the Route 66 Railfan model train exhibit, which is operated by Bober and Sansone.
Funds raised by the show will be used to build a model train display in the Route 66 Railfan building at 100 E. St. Louis St.
