2 weeks Ago By Jon Andreassi
For many, the sight of a model train racing around the base of a Christmas tree is an indelible holiday memory. As collecting and building model railways has become an increasingly niche hobby, however, it has become a less common sight for younger generations. The Train Gang of Washington County has worked for several years to inject that magic back into Christmas.
“We’ve got a group of about a dozen or more collector types. People my age that never grew up and always played with trains and liked to decorate for Christmas,” said Joe Jack, the group’s president. “It’s kind of a lost art to see a big Christmas display.
” Jack and his group have been set up in a space at Washington Crown Center mall for eight years. Visitors are treated to a carefully crafted model railroad that spans the length of the room. The trains wind through several different scenes, including Washington’s Main Street.
Before that the train gang would set up their display wherever they could, but always just temporarily. “We’ve been at several other places in the county, anywhere we could get a donated blank space that we could set our display up,” Jack said. “Usually we had to build it and tear it down.
” Washington Crown Center allows the train gang to keep their display up year round, saving them nearly two months of work every time they would need to set up the railroad again. The Train Gang display is typically open two Saturdays a month, but after Black Friday they will be there five days a week. It is free to enter, and the Train Gang sets out a box for monetary donations that will be divided among several local charities.
“It’s a donated situation. The mall wants us here as an attraction in the mall and it works out great. We’ve had people come 40, 50, 60, 100 miles to see this, and we get a lot of repeat visitors,” Jack said.
Fayette County has its own model railroad display with its own history. Currently at Connellsville Canteen, the display shows the craftsmanship of the late Connellsville native Harry Clark. The canteen is a project of the Fayette County Cultural Trust that is part cafe, part World War II museum.
Clark was a veteran of the Pacific Theater in World War II, serving in the Army from 1942 to 1945. His replica of the Indian Creek Valley takes up its own room of the canteen. “It took 40 years of Harry’s life to build the railroad display.
It’s 52 feet by 25 feet, and everything on the display is built from scratch,” said Daniel Cocks of the Connellsville Canteen. Cocks explained how meticulous Clark was in crafting each building and piece of foliage. Trees were created from dried hydrangea and dipped into melted crayon.
Clark initially built the railroad on the second floor of his garage in Connellsville. The first time it moved, it went to Nemacolin – in its entirety. “We boxed it up like a house,” Cocks said, adding that the display was lifted and lowered by a crane.
Almost a year after Clark died at the age of 91, they would repeat the same process in 2012 to bring it to its current home at the canteen on West Crawford Avenue. A YouTube video posted in 2012 shows the process by which the railroad display was dropped into position. Cocks said the cultural trust did not want to see the display torn apart and sold piecemeal.
“We preserved the whole thing. We were glad we had the empty lot on which to build this building to preserve that train display,” Cocks said. Cocks says the model draws tourists and train enthusiasts in the region, and is a popular field trip for Boy Scout troops.
The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum also puts up a model railroad display for the holiday season. This year’s display is in the process of being built, and is expected to be done after Black Friday. When children see those trains for the first time, Jack says the excitement is off the charts.
“That’s why we do it, basically,” Jack said. “It’s for the youngsters today that were never exposed to it, and they’re just spellbound with the lights and the whistles and the buzzers they can push to do things.” It’s not just the kids, either.
Jack has heard many parents express how the Train Gang’s display brings childhood Christmas memories rushing back. Jack hopes that some of that wonder will translate into people taking a more active interest in the hobby. The Train Gang’s numbers have dwindled over the years, and Jack would like to see younger people become involved who can keep the tradition going.
“We’re always looking for someone who maybe has a lot of time on their hands and likes the holidays, and remembers what they used to be,” Jack said..
