By David Harry

Staff Writer

As the Amtrak passenger train pulls into Gorham railroad station, bells clang and a conductor calls passengers to board.

But shoppers with bags will find the ride a tight fit – the scene is part of the model railroad display in the center of the Maine Mall in South Portland. While the display hearkens to a tradition more than 50 years old, it also shows how the cyber world has given an old hobby new sophistication.

The station was built by Buxton resident Carl Churchill and usually sits in his backyard as part of his Overlook Railroad.

Churchill is president of the Maine Garden Railway Society, a group of more than 100 members who like their trains to be large and run outside. Early last month, the group came indoors to erect a 24-by-32-foot layout of homes, railroad stations, trestles and novelties that will be on display until Dec. 24.

The layout nearly surrounds the area where children visit Santa. Dayton resident Nick Wilson said he it quickly became the first stop he and his son Trent, 2, had to make last Friday.

“We just had to stop and see the trains,” Wilson said, holding his son at the edge of the white picket fence around the layout.

Trent nodded and pointed at the exquisite replicas of steam engines that puff wisps of smoke and the grinning visage of Thomas the Tank Engine, star of children’s books and a PBS series. Eventually, he needed prodding to go see Santa.

“We’ll watch them go around just one more time,” Nick Wilson whispered to his son.

Saco resident Isabella Gonvilles, 6, said Thomas the Tank Engine was her favorite too, but the sight of more traditional replicas circling the tracks also drew long gazes from other shoppers.

For Churchill and club members, including Barry Sandford, it is a chance to show off their love for model railroading and relive memories from childhood.

The cottony terrain of the layout may not evoke a snowy setting, but details found in the locomotives, freight cars and passenger coaches are matched by Churchill’s hand-built structures such as a massive replica of the North Conway, N.H., train station.

“I’m just building in miniature now,” said Churchill, a retired contractor.

Churchill cuts individual cedar shingles for roofs and laid miniature bricks for his model of the Bayside Inn.

Not all club members are as elaborate as Churchill: The essence of the hobby is getting it done, Sandford said.

“If it looks good from 10 feet away, it’s perfect,” he said.

Churchill said he began working with G-scale trains because his wife, Patricia, noticed he didn’t run trains on his attic track in the summer. Now the layout outside his Buxton home winds through his wife’s garden, with terrain she planted and buildings she painted.

He runs trains through the year, and plows snow from the tracks and keeps them clean with a special locomotive with polishing wheels. Summer days are spent hosting open houses for club members, nursing home residents and veterans who live at the Maine Veteran’s Home in Scarborough.

Model trains have been sold for about a century and vary in size known as scale ratios between the size of the model and the real thing. Some are miniscule – Z-scale is a ratio of 1:220 inches. O-scale trains made popular by Lionel have a ratio of 1:48 inches, according to the National Model Railroading Association website.

Garden railroad scales vary, but are larger than O-scale and can include 1:12-inch trains people can ride, according to grwtrains.com. 

The trains chugging through the mall are 1:29-inch models, often custom-painted with logos for club members’ railroads or Maine railroads that no longer operate. Many are made at USA Trains in Malden, Mass., and are also sold by Churchill at his supply shop in Buxton.

G-scale trains need space, at least 8 feet for turning. Locomotives can cost more than $800, according to the usatrains.com and freight cars can cost more than $200.

“But dollar for dollar, you get more with G-scale,” said Churchill, who said the first train set he got almost 50 years ago was made by Lionel.

Sandford said he runs his trains over an outdoor layout at his home in Athens, a small town near Skowhegan. He joked that he got his wife involved by suggesting what she might plant to add visual beauty to the layout. 

He said his trains are popular with a lot of creatures. 

“I have chipmunks and snakes in the rock walls. We name them, they give the railroad character,” he said.

Churchill and Sandford like to kid about ways they disguise their love for model railroading as an inclusive family activity, but emphatically believe young people can learn from the hobby.

Carpentry, electrical work and computer technology are all elements of railroad layouts. Sandford said his structures are not as elaborate as Churchill’s, but the work he puts into it can provide valuable lessons.

“If we can get kids back to trains, it will teach them so many mechanical things and the whole thing is still run by computer,” he said.

Adult work building the mall layout brought back childhood memories they said.

Churchill said visits to the old Porteous, Mitchell and Braun department store on Congress Street in Portland were always special as the holidays approached.

“You just couldn’t wait. Your folks would take you in and you’d run upstairs to see if the trains were running,” he said.

Sandford, who grew up in northern New Jersey, said department stores in New Jersey and New York were known for displays and recalled buying his first train set with money he got for Christmas.

“My parents had it all set up,” he said.

Maine Mall General Manager Craig Gorris said the display was set up to help make a visit to Santa more festive and interactive.

“It is a home run,” he said. “Everyone loves trains, the chugging and the puffing smoke.”

Staff Writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219.