(From left) are Zach Pavis, Cadence Hinnant and Jackson Van Ness with the train layout they built together. Photo by Bonnie Hobbs/The Connection
Featuring 45 tables of trains and train accessories, a “train doctor” who repaired broken trains and an operating layout built by three boys, the Train Collectors Sale and Show was held Saturday, Sept. 13, at the Vienna Firehouse.
Participants included Bruce Greenberg, who was there promoting his latest book, “Greenberg’s Guide to Lionel Trains.” It’s his sixth revision of that book and extensively documents the yearly changes Lionel has made to its trains.
He’s a member of the WB&A chapter of the Train Collectors Assn., which put on this show. He’s written 21 books on model trains, and his company, Kalmbach, publishes “Model Railroader” magazine.
Clem Clement of Fairfax was there demonstrating Bauer’s Spiral Railway, a circular track patented in 1923. He’s the past president of the Train Collectors Association and buys, sells and repairs model trains. As for the vertical, spiral railroad track he displayed, Clement called it “a fun toy. It has a tin-plate train that runs downhill by gravity.”
Another highlight of the show was the operating train layout built by three middle-school students, Zach Pavis, Cadence Hinnant and Jackson Van Ness. It comprised 300-400 pieces, including scenery, and took them about five hours to set up.
Zach and Cadence are both seventh-graders at Flint Hill School in Oakton, and Jackson’s an eighth-grader at Highland School in Warrenton. “What I think is cool about model railroading are the detailed scale models and all the mechanical motion, plus the history behind some of these things,” said Zach, an Oakton resident.
“I like how creative you can get with it,” said Cadence, of Fairfax. “You can do a lot more with a boxed set of trains than people believe you can; you can do lots of different things.”
Jackson said he’s always been interested in things that move. “You can kind of be in charge of your own, little world,” he explained. “I like to duplicate scenes of real railroads and different operational railroads. And you can make a model railroad really simple or very complex.”