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Local Feature  Posted on: 01/07/09 Written by: , email: Schenectady Museum hosts annual O-gauge train event Once a week, members of the Upstate Train Associates gather at a local diner -- maybe TOPS in Rotterdam or the Metro 20 Diner in Guilderland -- to talk trains. One member is a former Amtrak conductor. Another works for Amtrak as an engineer, often heading to the train station after breakfast. “He’s [the engineer] got a lot of interesting things to talk about,” said Dave Halverson, the group’s treasurer. Life-size locomotives aren’t the group’s main passion, though. Its mission is to advance the hobby of model railroading, and one of the ways it does that is to sponsor an O-gauge model railroad layout at the Schenectady Museum & Suits-Bueche Planetarium during the holiday season. Erin Breslin, the museum’s director of communications, said one of the reasons the display is popular with visitors is that a lot of parents bought small O-gauge trains for their kids to play with. “So many people know them from their childhood,” she said. Breslin, in fact, is one of them. Her dad, Mark, is part of the Upstate Train Associates, and Erin grew up around trains. She still enjoys them, and she even helps her dad run them at the museum. The Breslins’ connection isn’t the reason the UTA started showing the trains at the museum, though. The group was doing it long before Erin started working there. “It’s been a long-standing tradition for many, many years,” she said. The UTA ends each year with a big train show at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, Halverson said. Then, group members take about a week to break everything down and reassemble it at the Schenectady museum. The trains started running on Dec. 13 in Schenectady, and they’ll remain at the museum through the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday, Jan. 19. UTA members donated a lot of the display, Halverson said. It’s high quality -- an engine can cost as much as $1,200. “There’s some pretty expensive stuff down there,” he said. There’s also some pretty fun stuff. Halverson said visitors tend to get a kick out of the cars that actually load lumber, coal and cattle. In addition, there’s a train with a “cop and hobo” and an aquarium car that has swimming fish inside. The trains are only part of the attraction, though. Breslin noted that wherever you stand around the 19-by-27-foot display, you’ll see something different. One corner, for example, features an intricate amusement park. Miniature bumper cars collide with one another and passengers swing around on the Cha-Cha. There’s a traditional Ferris wheel as well as a tiny carousel. Elsewhere, there are small evergreen trees, a gas station, a church and countless other buildings. “People who love trains come from all over to see it,” Breslin said, noting that it’s not uncommon for the display to draw train enthusiasts from neighboring states. Visitors like the chance not just to see the trains in action, but to talk to the UTA members running them who have such a rich knowledge of model trains, she said. The trains run from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 10 and 11, and Saturday to Monday, Jan. 17 and 19. They’re included with museum admission. The Schenectady Museum & Suits-Bueche Planetarium is at 15 Nott Terrace Heights in Schenectady. For information, call 382-7890 or visit www.schenectadymuseum.org.You can contact with any questions. Also, feel free to post comments below. Comments powered by Disqus |
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