Model Train Fun

I forgot to share with you the other fun little thing we did last weekend when we stopped at the cider mill.  Only a couple times a year, the mill opens their model train set for public viewing.  

This train started out as a hobby for the mill owners years ago in the loft of their main building.  I have been visiting since I was a small child and its a great tradition for us to go see.  

My grandpa had a similar train set he started building in one of the upstairs bedrooms of their farmhouse when only the youngest two daughters were still at home.  He made a long plywood table along almost an entire wall of one bedroom and painted it with grass and water and set the train track.  

We had hours of fun messing with that thing - although only a few were actually spent running the train.  We spent more time using all our plastic cowboys and Indians with their horses staging scenes than running the trains.  As we got older we spent hours painting buildings and making accessories to go with the set.

The cider mill train takes up an entire loft tucked in under the rafters and is about the size of a large bedroom.  There is a small operators booth and a little viewing area with plexi-glass to keep little hands from being tempted to touch.  It hasn't had much done to it in years other than regular maintenance but it remains impressive.  

The mountains and tunnels have been sculpted from foam and painted with great care.  The set can run up to 7 trains at a time and I have forgotten how many trains they have but it appears to be in the neighborhood of twenty.  Its always fun to see and people of all ages seem to get a lot of enjoyment out of it.