ORLEANS — The grand plans of home-based hobbyists who tinker with model trains and the tiny landscapes they chug through are sometimes hindered by space limitations. But that’s not a problem for members of the Nauset Model Railroad Club. While most admit to having modest layouts set up in their homes, the club’s 6,000-square-foot meeting space and storage area in the walk-out basement of the Hilltop Plaza in Orleans allows members to let their creativity fly free.
Max Sarazin, an Eastham resident, started the model railroad club in 1989. Sarazin tacked flyers to telephone poles to advertise his idea, said current club president Jim Seaboldt. The club started with just five members who would meet on Friday nights at Sarazin’s house to talk trains. Brian Carney has been a member since the club’s second meeting. “I had been looking for a hobby,” said Carney. “I worked at Verizon, so I’ve been playing with wires all my life.”
As membership grew, meeting places changed, said Carney. Over the years, they’ve met in paint stores, pizza shops, churches, and a couple of police stations. The club has been at its current location at 180 Route 6A in Orleans for about 20 years.
On Friday nights throughout most of the year, members gather to “spruce things up,” according to Seaboldt. The group also delves into how-to workshops and brainstorming. Then they team up to work on the layouts, which feature five different track gauges, from diminutive N-gauge up to the considerably larger G-gauge. The scale of the trains on those tracks also runs from small to large, in terms of their respective ratios to real trains.
In the club’s storage area members refurbish donated items, which they sell to help pay for rent and utilities. It’s a modeler’s paradise, a trove of things like locomotive engines, passenger cars, open freight cars, track segments, miniature buildings, water towers, and railroad warning lights.
Model train enthusiasts and potential railway modelers get a glimpse of the club’s miniature worlds at a few open houses each year, including during this month. The Dec. 14 open house attracted an enthusiastic crowd with free admission that included candy canes and homemade cookies on the way in. Club member Peter Adam, the greeter, distributed scavenger hunt sheets that challenged visitors to locate certain buildings and landmarks among the hundreds spread across the miniature landscapes.
Jeffrey Bassett was one of the club members watching over the layouts and ready for questions. He was dressed for the part, sporting bib overalls and a striped engineer’s cap. Hidden in his hand was a Bluetooth remote, which he used to direct flashing lights and clanging bells, train whistles, and even announcements by the conductors as the trains came chugging by young viewers, many of them boosted in parents’ arms or standing on benches for better views.
A large Christmas train sped along a track suspended from the ceiling above Bassett’s head. The snowy terrain featured a mountain, a chairlift, and groups of tiny skiers.
Anna Turcotte had traveled from Falmouth with her two children. They had missed the open houses last year and made a point of coming this time. Declan, three, was delighted by the passing trains, with the gray “smoke” made of cotton rising from the locomotives’ stacks. His Spiderman boots lit up as he danced along the bench to follow the trains’ progress. Ella, five, meanwhile was crouching down low so she could watch as a train passed through the station.
One of the club’s biggest fans was there, too. Orion Prokoshyn, a Brewster four-year-old, is one of the younger regulars at the Friday night meetings. Constantine, Orion’s father, said his son is particularly fond of the steam engines. “I like all of them,” Orion said.
Jeanne and Michael Karaim of Brewster have been members of the Nauset club for 20 years. Michael had Lionel trains growing up; Jeanne’s older brother had American Flyer trains. Those were eventually handed down to her. Jeanne is one of a handful of women in the club.
“The best part is the camaraderie,” said Jeanne. At the open house, she was overseeing the Pawtucket Central Falls layout with Dick Boberg, the club member who had designed and built the detailed replica of the Pawtucket Station.
“We try to design a lot of realism into the layout,” Karaim said, pointing to the roundhouse, where model trains enter “for repairs.”
Glenn Boudreau of Brewster grumbled good-naturedly as he watched his grandson Hunter, 10, and his five-year-old brother, Bryce, absorbed in the miniature worlds that filled the room. “This is going to cost me,” he said.
There are two Saturday open houses remaining this season, from 1 to 4 p.m. on Dec. 21 and 28.
