The Oregon Electric O-Gaugers Train Club exhibited their room-sized model railroad at the Lebanon Public Library for a week in April, drawing in people of all ages.
Library staff worked in conjunction with the event to focus the preschool story time on the topic of trains. After a little singing and reading, the children moved over to the community room where club members ran their trains and answered questions.
Some of the kids showed their interest with “wow” faces eagerly watching the trains circle the tracks, some pointed, and some ran around the model to follow the trains.
“It’s really cool,” said Hyrum Cox, 7.
The three-track layout featured a vintage, small town vibe display that included a hot dog stand, billboards, police and fire stations, a car wash, trees and power poles, houses (including one that was on fire and being assisted by a fire crew), supermarkets, gas station, restaurants, a bus station, various businesses (including PEAK Internet, a hardware store and train shop), a UFO picking up a cow, several people doing their business, a trolley, various other businesses, and three sets of trains circling the display.
Club member David Rhoades, of Lebanon, said it took about 10 people to set up the model in over two hours. Over the years the club has invested in the hundreds of pieces to build the model, and club members bring their own trains to run during their exhibits.
To engage visitors and encourage noticing the details, the club provided a list of items to find in a sort of scavenger hunt. A wooden train set geared for small children and a bigger electric train set were set on the floor for interactive play.
While much of the railroad model was hands-off, a few buttons were installed that could be pushed to engage some of the models in a little action. For example, the fire station door would open and a fire truck would exit, a car would exit a garage and pull into the fuel pump area, a man would go down the stairs of a burning house, and a car would run through the car wash.
When asked what his favorite feature in the display was, Hyrum couldn’t provide an answer because “it’s all really cool.”
The club has been showing its railroad model in Albany and Corvallis for years, Rhoades said, but this was the first time they showed it in Lebanon.
“We were only doing four shows a year, but we just added Lebanon because Lebanon’s a train town with (Santiam) Excursion,” he said.