If Puyallup Fair burnout has caught up with you, consider taking the family to Auburn today for the White River Valley Museum’s annual Model Railroad Show.
Eight model train layouts, some with surface areas that top 400 square feet, will fill the museum and the nearby Auburn Senior Activity Center. This won’t be the first year the show has spilled out of the museum, but there are more trains and layouts than before, said Tara McCauley, curator of education at the museum.
“This show will bigger and better than what we’ve had in the past,” said McCauley, adding that last year’s show featured five large layouts.
Local fan clubs and individual collectors will show off their model trains. They’ll include:
• The Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club.
• The Mount Rainier N Scale Club.
• The Tacoma Northwestern Model Railroad Club.
• The United Northwest Model Railroad Club.
• The Pacific Northwest region (N Track Division) of the National Model Railroad Association.
Models will range from the tiny “N” scale to the larger “G” scale trains, and tracks typically used in outdoor displays.
As if daydreaming of simpler times while watching model trains chug through miniature towns, forests, farmlands and mountain ranges isn’t enough, the show also will allow visitors to try several interactive layouts.
“Some of the smaller layouts will be for kids to get their hands on and play with,” said McCauley.
Bill Messecar, a Kent resident and a board member of the Boeing employees club, said his group will have 12 to 15 members at the show. They’ll demonstrate one of the club’s “modular” layouts, which is a large display that disassembles into eight smaller pieces that can be rearranged.
“This show is about sharing our hobby with the families and the kids,” said Messecar, who has been a White River Valley Museum docent since he retired from Boeing’s marketing department in 2001. “The kids get right up next to the trains, and then they hear the whistles blow, and I love to see the smiles on their faces.”
The Boeing club’s show layout is in the HO scale, one of the most popular gauges for model railroading, Messecar said. An eighth of an inch in HO scale equates to about 1 foot, he said.
The railroad show kicks off a season of annual model railroading events in King, Pierce and Thurston counties.
“It gets bigger every year in terms of attendance and the number of hobbyists participating,” Messecar said. “It’s really a nice show. The museum does things right.”
Often, members of one club participate in other clubs, so the model railroading community is a close-knit one.
“We all tend to know each other, and a lot of folks try out different scales just to do something different,” Messecar said.
About four years ago, Messecar built an “extra” garage at his home to accommodate a 23-by-27-foot train layout.
“It doesn’t have to cost a lot of time or money,” Messecar said, “but when you start adding buildings to your house like I did, it can take a bit of both.”
In addition to the train sets, the museum has installed a temporary exhibit featuring “some of the railroad ephemera we’ve collected over the years,” said McCauley. On display will be pieces of the local histories of the Burlington Northern and Milwaukee railroads, she said.
Visitors will be able to see some of the old lanterns used along the rails and telegraph keys from rail-station telegraph offices. Children can participate in coloring activities and take home a list of tips and ideas for starting their own model railroad layouts.
Bill Hutchens: 253-597-8460
What: White River Valley Museum Model Railroad Show
When: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. today
Where: White River Valley Museum, 918 H St. S.E., and Auburn Senior Activity Center, 808 Ninth St. S.E. (on the grounds of the Auburn Community Campus)
Admission: $3 general, $2 children
I
nformation: 253-288-7433 or www.wrvmuseum.org
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.