Big boys and their toys. Some never grow out of it.
Toy trains were big for many of these grown up children and the passion they have for the hobby is still there.
Bob Hanna was showing off his switching layout.
“It’s to show people you don’t need a whole basement full of trains or a big table you can do something even if you only have a shelf. You can do switching,” said Hanna.
Two buildings at the Van Wert County Fairgrounds were dedicated to just the train layouts. one of the groups was the Northeast Indiana N-Scale Club.
Bill Piercy has vague recollections of when he first became introduced to model trains.
“My father bought me a Lionel set in the late ‘50’s and the first picture of me was sitting in the middle of it with my father, my brother in law, running the trains,” said Piercy.
The Van Wert Historical Society puts on the annual Railroad Heritage Weekend as a fundraiser for their activities.
“All the funds we get for this show go to benefit the historical society which has developed quite a bit of a railroad display up at the museum uptown. The other key thing about this is we have a whole bunch of sponsors, local businesses who have contributed to this event and those funds allow us to invite these displays and these layouts to come. We have on from Battle Creek, Michigan. We have a couple of guys from the Dayton area, Swanton, Ohio...several from Ft. Wayne and without the help and support of the business community that have helped us out we wouldn’t be able to have these layouts and displays,” said Chuck White event organizer.
