Model train displays give a glimpse of the past
Those
entering the Monterey Depot will immediately be met with the sight of a model
railroad winding through a replica of the area, complete with a miniature town,
mountains, coal mine and more. The display, nearly complete now after two years
of work, is a product of the Central Tennessee Model Railroaders.
“Of
course, old time model railroaders will always tell you the layout is never
finished, because you’re always tinkering with something and changing something,”
member Jim Murchison said.
The
club has been in existence for about three years now, and the Monterey Depot
has been the members’ largest project to date. They actually started sketching
the plans for the display before construction on the building even began.
The
background and a few of the miniature pieces are store-bought, however the
majority is made from scratch — from the buildings that are made from wood and
cardstock, to the trees that are made from barbeque skewers and ground-up foam,
to the mountains that are made from painted plaster. It has taken members
countless of hours of work to create the picture-perfect snapshot of this area
of Tennessee in the 50s.
“Model
railroaders often pick the early to mid-50s to model, and I suspect it’s because
it’s reasonable to have both diesel engines and steam engines in operation
during that era,” Murchison said. “Rail-modelers want to have everything really
accurate — if they get really serious about it, they’re known as
rivet-counters,” he added with a laugh.
The
Central Tennessee Model Railroaders have been striving to make everything
accurate as possible in their display. There’s the Imperial Hotel that still
exists in Monterey today, right across from the Monterey Depot, as well as a
railroad bridge in the Lovejoy community that was the scene of a tragic
derailment that cost two men their lives — though the model does not depict the
accident. There are also the coal mines that were important in the Wilder area.
“This
area used to be big-time coal mining,” Murchison said. “In fact, the community
of Wilder developed around coal mining. Now, a curious thing about Wilder is
there was a general during the Civil War, on the Union side who fought in this
area — his name was Wilder. He was so interested in this area, he came back to
the area and developed the community of Wilder later.”
Now
that the Monterey display is just about complete, the club is looking for
available space to start a new layout for the club.
“The
essential difference in my mind between club layouts and museum layouts is that
in a museum, you turn it on and it just runs,” Murchison said. “A club layout,
we would probably have operating sessions and run the railroad. Some clubs get
really into it and they make assignments, like you have to deliver and pick up
loads (with the train).”
The
club currently includes 12 members who meet the first Thursday of the month in
Cookeville at Shoney’s with the meeting starting at 6:30 p.m., and social time
starting at 6 p.m. The rest of the month, they meet at 6:30 p.m. on Thursdays
at the Monterey Depot to work on finishing the display there. New members of
any age from youth to adult are always welcome.
Most
got into the hobby because they were passionate about toy trains as children,
however some came into it later in life.
Murchison
has been working with model trains for about nine years. He picked it up after
he had a stroke that left one side of his body extremely weakened. After a
while, he got tired of his regular physical therapy exercises.
“So
I started going down to the local hobby shop right across from the depot,
buying the cheapest kits that the guy had for sale, and going home and trying
to put the kits together. I spent 30 minutes to get one screw in the right
place,” Murchison chuckled. “But it really helped.”
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