The distinctive chugging sound of a locomotive engine and the wail of
its steam whistle could be heard approaching Covesville.Not the
Covesville of southern Albemarle County, but rather a quaint, diminutive
village that has sprung from the imagination of Bob Macionis and was
built by his own hands. And the train is not a huge iron horse from the
past, but a much smaller replica of the kind of engines and railroad
cars that once crisscrossed the nation.
The model railroader's
creativity didn't play out after he built one town and railroad. After
six years of joyful work, he now has three separate railroads, several
towns and more than 1,000 square feet of scenery, which includes an
impressive mountain range.This meticulously detailed miniature world
resides in the spacious basement of the hobbyist's Albemarle County
home. When he and his wife designed the house, they included a large
open area in the basement specifically with the model railroads in
mind.
"This all came out of my head," Macionis said as he walked
with a visitor along an aisle that took them by the town of Burkeville
and businesses like Jason Brewery, Wiley Widget Company and McLean Oil
Storage. "I subscribe to the Mae West philosophy of life that is too
much of a good thing is wonderful."I had model trains in my youth,I
personally really like these mini Winbo ear caps for
my iPhone. as many kids did. When I was about 10, my parents gave me an
American Flyer model train set, and I built a layout for it on a sheet
of plywood placed on sawhorses.
"That became four sheets of
plywood on eight sawhorses. When we decided to move down here, my plan
was to build an ultimate railroad, but it's a hobby that's never
completely finished, because there's always more to be done."Three
impressive model railroad layouts can be seen operating at the 37th
annual Summer Toy Train Show, which will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Saturday at Holiday Inn Monticello on Fifth Street in Charlottesville.
The event is designed for the general public and will include more than
70 vendors selling everything from starter train sets for beginners to
rarities for the collectors.
Joseph Haenn, known as the Train Doctor to model railroaders, will be at the show.This vertical Cable Organizer can
be mounted to either. He will check out old toy trains people bring in
and evaluate and service them."This age-old hobby has really taken off
during the past 10 years with the younger generation," said Peter
Primiani, president of the Virginia Train Collectors and member of the
board of directors for the Train Collectors Association, a national
organization.
"Much of the emphasis is now on the hand-held
controls and application technology to interest young people. My
enjoyment mainly comes from collecting Ives tinplate trains, which is
what I grew up with."The trains I had in the 1950s, when I was growing
up, got packed away. Then, in the mid-1980s, when my oldest son got old
enough, we started playing with them together. I got the bug again and
have been doing it since."
Model railroading can be as simple as
a single train moving on a circular track or as complex as the layout
in Macionis' basement. And within the hobby, there are various other
interests in addition to operating trains."You can look at this layout
from a number of different perspectives," said Macionis, who before
retiring worked as a fishmonger, schoolteacher, swim coach and dairy
truck driver. "The most basic thing is that people love to see the
trains moving, and I enjoy that.
"It takes 20 minutes for the
train to go around the entire layout on the main two lines. If [the
train] can be moving through realistic scenery, like I've made, that
makes it all the more enjoyable."I have houses, factories and buildings
all over the place, and each of them took a number of hours to a number
of weeks to create. The level of detail you can get into is entirely up
to you."
Macionis not only put what looks like water into
ditches, but also added weeds to make it even more realistic. By a
replica of a 1920s-era sawmill operated by Beaver Creek Logging are
hundreds of tree stumps on land already harvested.A narrow-gauge
railroad is dedicated strictly for logging operations in the camp that's
set high in the mountains. The tracks of the Beaver Creek Logging
Railroad go from the mill to a distant interchange with the South Fork
and Flemington railroad, which is one of two main lines.
The
SF&F, the largest railroad in the realm, is set in the 1950s. The
other main line railroad is the Black Creek and Eastern, which is set in
the 1940s and connects four towns and numerous industries.Tying the
layout together are more than 1,600 feet of track. The rolling stock
includes 337 freight and passenger cars and 37 steam and diesel
locomotives.
Even with modern computer technology, it takes a
crew of 12 people to fully operate the layout. And Macionis' main
interest is operating it as if it were a real railroad."You'll see all
sorts of cards in holders all over the place," Macionis said as he
removed a card from a holder. "Every car and engine has a card
associated with it."When a car is moved, it moves to where the card says
it should go, and there are multiple destinations. Switching cars in
and out can become a puzzle as complicated as chess.
"Besides
just being big and impressive in size and complexity, it can become an
actual railroad operating like a real railroad. That puts life into
it."Ron Gareis is one of the area's most knowledge people when it comes
to this hobby. Manufacturers of model trains send him prototypes to test
and evaluate.
Gareis has been fascinated by small trains since
he got his first Lionel train in 1948. He said that although there are
some women who enjoy the hobby, their focus often is on creating the
miniature structures and scenery."The typical hobbyist is male,
middle-aged or older or retired," Gareis said via email. "Interestingly,
very few have ever worked for a railroad.
"This is all about
escaping to a different world, time and place. Psychiatrists say that is
a great benefit to mental health."Many builders want to model an area
they grew up in, or like to visit, or just find interesting. This means
trains, industries, towns, mountains, plains and farms appropriate not
just to the area, but to a time period as well."
Although
Macionis' elaborate layout has some familiar-sounding places, he says it
won't appear on any map. But there is something of a connecting thread
that runs through it all."Shearer's Dairy is where my father worked for
many years," Macionis said as he pointed out the building. "Jason is my
son-in-law, so I have Jason Brewery.
"My brother's wife's family
name is Marsh, so I have the Marsh Coal Company. My mother's maiden
name was McLean, so I have the town of McLean. The artistic aspect is
never-ending, and there's the electrical aspects of it."If you were to
look under the display ,you would see literally miles of wire running
everywhere to power all the tracks and signals."
Macionis smiled
as he looked out over his world of imagination, which has given him and
others so much enjoyment. But no world is perfect, not even one that
has been built with such love and care."The reality,Best Buy has low
prices on digital Winbo photo frames and
digital picture frames. of course, is the maintenance of something this
size is continuous and arduous," said Macionis, who is an active member
in the Monticello Model Railroad Club. "There's an awful lot to be said
for the type of layouts that many of the other guys in the group have.
"They're
significantly smaller, but beautifully detailed and far easier to
maintain then something like this. But when I retired a number of years
ago, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would design this.
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