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(erielack) Finding Minnesota: Working On The Railroad

This is mostly to inspire our modellers, but there's also a White
Castle restaurant on this layout!  Watch the 3-minute video!!!

http://wcco.com/local/twin.city.model.2.363698.html

Dec 2, 2007 10:00 pm US/Central
Finding Minnesota: Working On The Railroad
by Bill Hudson

St. Paul (WCCO) ― In the golden days of railroading, trains
with names like Olympian and Hiawatha raced across the prairie,
packed with passengers.

More than fifty years later, inside an old St. Paul railroad repair
shop, some of those old legacy railroads, like the Minneapolis 400,
still make their daily run.

However, this is more than just an old repair shot. This is the Twin
City Model Railroad Museum, a place for kids of all sizes and all
ages.

The museum's John Mertz said he practically grew up in the cab of an
old steam engine.

"In fact I spent so much time with dad in the engine until the day my
mother and the truant office caught me, then I had to go back to
school," he said.

The model railroad is laid out like a sprawling Twin Cities in
miniature has more than a few familiar landmarks: The Gold Medal
Flour sign, St. Paul's Grandview Theater and a White Castle built
from the restaurant's own blueprints.

It all looks like fun, but this railroad isn't just kid stuff. It's a
labor of love, where the building is done by men and women who were
true artists.

"When it came time to construct landmarks like the Stone Arch Bridge
over the Mississippi, club members took the time to come out and
measure the actual structures," said the museum's Arnie Hochhalter.

He pointed to the model bridge.

"Those are all single pieces of wood. The guys that built those cut
all those little single pieces of wood and then glued them
individually onto the wall," said Hochhalter who, by the way, never
had a trail set while he was a child.

It took more than fifteen years to create this model layout. It could
take as long for a first-time visitor to catch every detail. From the
canoe trapped on St. Anthony's falls, to the campers pulling an
Airstream trailer with a VW bus. It's all here.

But the trains are still the stars of the show. Some of them are as
old as the club itself.

"We've got to keep 'em going. The engines in particular need a lot of
work, but then again they get a lot of use," Mertz said.

All in a day's work on this railroad.

Gary R. Kazin
DL&W Milepost R35.7
Rockaway, New Jersey


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