Children track down a good time

By Chris Guanche | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

November 30, 2008

Article Date: November 30th, 2008

Model train show staged at Pembroke Pines school

By Chris Guanche | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

November 30, 2008

Ryan Anderson, 2, of Sunrise , watches a train go around the tracks during the event. at the Pembroke Pines Charter School Model Train Show sponsored by the Florida Citrus Model Train Society on Nov. 22. ( Jackie Gerena, FPG / November 22, 2008)

There were trains everywhere you looked.

The cafeteria at the Pembroke Pines Charter School Central Campus was recently filled with model trains for a show sponsored by the Florida Citrus Model Train Society. Model trains of every scale and type covered the tables, ranging from freight to old-style passenger cars, and from Amtrak to Tri-Rail. Stacks of rail tracks, accessory buildings, landscapes and electrical control systems joined the trains.

In between the tables, adults and children shared one thing in common: a fascination for trains.

"[Kids] are the lifeline of our hobby," said Ken Sargeant, the model train society's president. "We want to get them involved."

Sargeant said the group reaches out to children by staging the train show and giving out train sets as prizes. Sargeant and other society members also conduct educational sessions about train track safety as part of Operation Lifesaver.

There was no lack of things for children to see, from train videos to Christmas-themed trains. But the show's eye-catcher was a large train display that measured 35 feet long by 15 feet wide. Featuring dozens of buildings and cars, along with at least 100 train cars, the display replicated the feel of an old-time American town.

On one level, a single-car passenger trolley made its rounds past banks, hotels and boxcar diners. On a lower level, multiple tracks ran the course of the entire display, complete with bridges, a long freight train and an Amtrak passenger train.

"It's a relaxing hobby, and it allows you to get away from the real world to a fantasy world," said Greg Baird of Hallandale Beach, one of several modelers who built the display.

With a wireless remote control in hand, Baird managed every aspect of the display, including train speed, smoke, horns, lights and passenger announcements at his custom-built train station. Baird said the display cost between $15,000 and $20,000, with some engines valued at $1,300.

"It's very expensive, but a lot of fun," Baird said.

That was evident for 4-year-old Matthew Hebert, who eagerly watched the trains in the display with his father, Monti Hebert. Hebert said he'd been fascinated with trains since he was a boy, and now his son shares that fascination. In addition to pulling out a train set from The Polar Express movie every year for Christmas, Hebert said he and Matthew take regular train rides down to Miami on the Tri-Rail.

"I'm here for him now," said Hebert, of Pompano Beach. "It's all about imagination; if you keep a kid's imagination, your mind stays fresh."

Model trains were a longtime hobby for vendor Don Croswell of Royal Palm Beach. Over the course of 25 years, Croswell has collected a large amount of trains, but he also custom builds his own freight cars by using items such as cigar holders as cargo.

"If you make it interesting, people will say 'I've never seen that before,'" Croswell said.

A former Pembroke Pines resident, Croswell said he usually attracted 50 to 100 children every Halloween when he would open up his garage for public viewing of his large model train display. Some children preferred watching the trains to collecting candy, he said.

Croswell's interest in trains extends beyond models and to the real ones.

"Once you get involved in trains, you want to see what the big boys do," he said.

The show also featured a display of telegraphs and other train-related items such as lamps and spikes. Dressed in a conductor's uniform from the 1910s, telegraph enthusiast Robert Feeney explained and demonstrated the technology to curious onlookers.

"A lot of people have never seen a telegraph, maybe in a movie, but they don't know anything about it," said Feeney, of Plantation .

Feeney's interest with telegraphs extends to when he found a book about telegraphs at his school library. Feeney then learned Morse code and joined the Florida chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club at age 6. Sixteen years later, he's serving as president of his chapter. Feeney's interest in telegraphs easily intersects with trains because they used telegraphs for communication.

"Someone with batteries, jars of acid and copper wire back in the 1800s could send messages around the world," Feeney said.

Visit www.fcmts.org for more information on the model train society.

Chris Guanche can be reached at cguanche@tribune.com.

Article Date: December 8th, 2008

Toy train shows delights kids and adults alike

By PHILLIP VALYS | Forum Publishing Group

December 8, 2008

Ken Sargeant, like most enthusiasts in his generation, collects model trains.

But his passion comes at a price: His generation, and with it America 's fascination with train hobbies, was dying. The national pastime needed fresh, younger faces.

So, Sargeant founded the Florida Citrus Model Train Society in 1999 and started hosting model train shows in middle and high schools, hoping children and teens would eventually replace the legions of middle-aged and older fans.

"We cater to the children because I feel it's the lifeline of the hobby," said Sargeant, 67, of Plantation . "We're trying to get the kids involved, and that's why the person winning the door prizes had to be 12 years of age or less."

Sargeant is referring to last month's toy train show inside Pembroke Pines Charter Middle School 's central campus cafeteria, which has been FCMTS's venue for the past two years. The event corralled more than 500 locomotive lovers, history buffs, toy collectors and their children to tables crammed with Lionel and Mike's Train House models, spare parts and entire Christmas-themed train sets.

Although the 15-member FCMTS meets Fridays at Lester's Diner in Fort Lauderdale near the Tri-Rail and CSX freight train tracks, they host model train shows at Pines Charter Middle. That venue stemmed from a show Principal Kenneth Bass caught at South Plantation High when Sargeant was assistant principal. Impressed, Bass convinced Sargeant to move the venue to his school.

Among the displays were Sargeant's Christmas trains — one featuring Snoopy riding atop one boxcar with arms outstretched, another toting Christmas ball ornaments and bow-wrapped presents, plus one carting a flatbed car upon which Santa, his sleigh and reindeer rested as Rudolph's nose blinked red.

On the cafeteria's opposite end, Florida East Coast train buff Robert Feeney, 22, sported an 18th century conductor's outfit and demonstrated how copper sulfate electrically powered early telegraph machines. Telegraphs patched up train station arrival and departure problems by standardizing time, Feeney said. A conductor's pocket watch was worthless because it couldn't account for time zone shifts aboard West to East Coast trains, so Western Union transmitted telegraph messages to conductors with time updates.

"Those dots and dashes replaced a conductor's watch entirely," said Feeney, a Broward Community College student who also partakes in Civil War re-enactments and is president of the Morse Telegraph Club.

As vendors along 12 tables sold passenger trains, decals, rusted metal spikes, magazines, metal track sections, and walked around controllers, there were displays from Operation Lifesaver, a train safety group, and a 35-by-15-foot toy train village from the South Florida High Rail. The whistle-stop mini-town featured tiny trees, scale model cars, and pocket-sized gas stations, courthouses and malt shops. A 125-foot-long track stretched around the perimeter, upon which blazed the Washington Congressional Silver Engine and an Amtrak bullet train, among others.

George Baird toggles a switch on the village's walk-around and the " Rio Grande " grinds to a halt, sound effects and all. He squirts a few droplets of smoke fluid inside the model's heater and sends it packing.

"It'll be hissing smoking the next time it comes around," said High Rail member Baird, 70, of Hallandale , as the " Rio Grande " whistled away. "I've been running the model trains since I got one under the Christmas tree at 12 years old."

The occasion gave Peter Warrick, 61, a 36-year Plantation hobby train store owner, reason to donate two Pennsylania Flyer freight trains, worth $150 apiece, during the show as drawing prizes.

"This is a good, lifelong hobby and a great way to get kids started on metal train sets," said Warrick, of Davie . "These transformer tracks are what you'd call a starter set, perfect for beginners."

When 2-year-old Scot McCoy won a train set, his grandfather, Roger McCoy, 57, whooped and cheered, carrying his grandson onstage. Scot hugged the train box and resumed playing with a wooden train village assembled in a children's play area.

"Oh, man, this is really nice," said Roger, of Fort Lauderdale , whose personal collection of N-gauge, O-gauge and G-scale trains are worth $50,000. "Scot loves trains. He blows the conductor's whistle and plays with my set at home already. He'll get a real kick out of this."

Phillip Valys is a Gazette staff writer. E-mail him at pines@tribune.com.

Article Date: November 21st, 2008

Model train show tomorrow at Pines Charter Middle

Posted by pmb123 on November 21, 2008 at 9:00 AM

Pines Charter Middle Central campus, 12350 Sheridan St., will be a hotspot for model train enthusiasts tomorrow.

The show, which features more than a dozen train booths, demonstrations and representatives from hobby train stores, culls about 500 children every year. We cater to the children because I feel it's the lifeline of the hobby," said Ken Sargeant, Florida Citrus Model Train Society, who's hosted shows at the Charter Middle for two years. "That's why the person winning the door prizes has to be 12 years of age are less."

The event also contains a performance of the national anthem by a Charter Middle school student, the color guard, movie screenings, interactive displays featuring telegraphs and the history of Florida's locomotive industry, plus electric train set giveaways.
The Model Train Show runs 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. inside the Charter Middle's cafeteria. Tickets are $3 for adults, but free for kids under 12.

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