St. Albert rail fans will be chugga-chugging on down to Sherwood Park this weekend for the region’s biggest annual model train show.
About 5,000 model railroad enthusiasts from across western Canada are expected to visit Sherwood Park this weekend for the 22nd annual Greater Edmonton Train Show.
The show is a chance for model railroaders to get together, show off their hobby and get more people interested in it, said Dave Robinson, one of its organizers.
This year’s show features about 25 displays of moving and static model trains, the cars for which can be smaller than your finger or big enough to ride. Many will be equipped with realistic lights and sounds, and will trundle through miniature landscapes that can cover dozens of tables.
St. Albert’s Jack Slimmon has been collecting model trains for about 40 years and will be operating a display at this year’s show.
“It’s a fun hobby,” he said of model railroading, one that involves artistry, carpentry and a bit of electrical skill.
Slimmon said he got into trains decades ago after he bought his three-year-old son a train set as a gift. His son lost interest in it, but he didn’t. Now, he’s amassed a small fleet of locomotives and train cars, and runs them on a room-sized layout in his basement that includes roads, cars, buildings and handmade trees.
Fellow St. Albert rail fan Tim McEachern will also be at the show. He’s part of a group that will be showcasing the relatively gigantic G-scale model trains, which are 1/25th the size of the real thing.
G-scale trains typically require permanent track layouts that take up entire yards, McEachern said. His club has spent about a year designing a more portable layout for this year’s show that features a small town complete with a church, school and farmhouse. This weekend will be the first time the group has shown this setup in public.
“We had a simple circle, and it grew and grew and now it’s 20 by 40 feet,” he said of the layout.
Model railroading is a great hobby for those who like to work with their hands, and requires patience, creativity and dexterity, Robinson said. Displays like the ones at the Edmonton show are often the work of 20 or more people, and have extraordinarily fine details to them. He’s seen ones in the past that have featured UFOs making crop circles in fields and the band KISS performing before a crowd of hundreds of little people, complete with a small TV as a video screen.
“There’s a lot of creativity that goes into a display like that.”
While some collectors simply like to watch their trains run, Slimmon said others like him try to simulate railway operations with them.
“You pick up a train, you get your stack of waybills for what’s in the train and you have to deliver those to different places,” he said.
Others will do extensive research on a time or location to make their trains and layouts historically accurate, Slimmon said.
Robinson said this weekend’s show features many model train and train memorabilia vendors and free talks on model railroading. A few lucky youths will walk away with free starter train sets.
Slimmon pitched it as a great place to take the kids for the day or add to your collection.
“Little kids love seeing trains running.”
The show runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday at Sherwood Park’s Millennium Place. Tickets are $10, or $5 for youths aged five to 16, and free for kids four and under. Visit bit.ly/2MriNR2 for details.
