EMMETSBURG - As Marshal Boone, 7, slowly began backing up his train toward a siding to pick up a caboose, things suddenly came to a screeching halt.
With a little help from John Davis, the convention director of the National Model Railroad Association Prairie Lakes Division Train Meet, the problem was quickly diagnosed.
Seems a cattle car had jumped off the rails and wedged itself against a building - this calls for a device model railroad buffs might refer to as an 0-5-0 wrecking crane or to someone watching, a steady hand with five nimble fingers to get the errant car back onto the track and down the line on the modular HO scale layout set up at the show.
Marshal Boone was attending the meet as special treat on his birthday by his parents, Mike and Connie.
"He's got the bug," Mike Boone said. "He's been looking forward to this all week," Connie Boone added.
John Davis, who helped construct quite a bit of the modular layout, had a twinkle in his eye watching the young engineer running the train. He got his own start in the hobby at about the same age with a Lionel train set. He later switched to HO scale and now has a major portion of his basement dedicated to a scale recreation of the real world - focusing of course - on the trains.
Davis has done what a lot of model railroaders do, he created his own railroad instead of choosing a real line to recreate. He calls his the Chicago, Empire and Western.
"I used to like the Chicago and Northwestern and the Empire Builder so I combined them," he said.
Davis' HO scale world is frozen in time, he includes models on his railroad that fit into what is known as the transition era, this was the time period from World War II to the early 1960s when the real railroads were switching from steam power to diesel-electric.
"I don't run any of this modern stuff," he said.
Davis said that model railroading is a hobby that can involve the entire family, can help teach history and even valuable lessons about railroad safety.
He recommends starting youngsters with bigger trains such as those still made by Lionel and for adults, joining a train club in their area.
"You get experts in every phase of the hobby," he said.
Ron Peterson, the public relations director for the Prairie Lakes Division, was watching participants at the show coming to the contest area and voting for their favorites. Modelers compete in different categories such as engines, structures and freight cars.
One of them was his, a HO scale model of a special flatcar used to haul large transformers.
"I started with a piece of plastic," he said.
Peterson built the model in a process called scratch building. This means starting with various pieces of plastic, brass or wood, cutting them to size, assembling them and adding commercially or homemade details and eventually, after sometimes hundreds of man-hours, producing a model that has just about everything on it the real thing did including tiny parts like bolt heads and rivets.
"It's kind of a favorite thing to do," he said.
Whether of not Peterson's hard work would pay off in the contest remains to be seen, contest director Denny Davids said that winning a popular vote contest is not always about any entry being the best model.
"It's what catches their eye," he said.
Peterson said that the biggest goal of the meet was to try and get people, particularly youth, interested in the hobby. He also cited the camaraderie and networking with other modelers as a big attraction for those already involved.
Tina Davis got into the hobby in a rather unusual way.
"I married into it," she said.
He father in-law and brother in-law are both active modelers.
"I get tapped to help out," she said.
One of the things that surprised her ?
"I didn't realize the intricate level of details," she said.
Those attending the meet were also able to shop for items from vendors, attend clinics on different aspects of the hobby, tour the railroad facilities at Poet Ethanol and in the afternoon, attend a tour of John Davis' home layout.
Contact Hans Madsen at (515) 573-2141 or hmadsen@messengernews.net
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