It’s hard to say who was busier, the trains or their modelers.
Already several hours into the monthly meeting, and the model floor buzzed with activity. Some modelers walked alongside their trains, others fiddled with scenery. A pair of layout designers, Pedro and Gene, looked almost like Lewis and Clark as they discussed a new expansion over a map.
The Austin Model Railway Society began a decade ago, when the Austin modeler community thought it was high time they bought a permanent building for their layouts. Then they saw real estate costs; they had to do some saving. In the meantime, they built a “modular layout,” a model built of smaller sections for easy transport. Now they meet every month at Hope Presbyterian Church, where for a few hours they play gods to a teeming train system larger than my one bedroom.
There’s dozens of members there, undeterred by the disassembly process awaiting them in a few hours.
Steve Jackobs, president of the society, explained the appeal of modeling with sage-like wisdom.
“Every boy finds his obsession at a certain age,” Jackobs told me. He discovered modeling from his father, who himself wasn’t much for the hobby. As a teen, Jackobs did so much modeling at a local hobby shop that he got hired for weekends.
“Then there’s an interlude we all experience when we go off to college or get a career or a marriage or a family,” he said. “And then we come back in our late 30s or early 40s.” It becomes an oasis from the mounting pressures of that career or family. For him, he returned to modeling to escape his high-stress job.
Our conversation touched on advice from singer Rod Stewart, himself a railway modeler: that every man needs a job, a sport, and a hobby. Jackobs agreed. For him, he looked forward to going home every day to “accomplish something.”
These modelers sure have accomplished a lot. Every year they pitch the Austin Train Show, where they invite the public to celebrate all things trains.
Their work has even drawn the eye of those who take trains a little more seriously. Jackobs mentioned representatives from Project Connect attended this year’s convention, curious to see if the society could help with promotion.
The idea wasn’t so far-fetched. The layout mirrored historic railroads with such fidelity, a member of the public would have to try to not learn anything about trains. Personally, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the layout’s traffic-free MoPac.
Jackobs told me the freeway got its name from the Missouri Pacific Railroad, one of the first railroads to operate on this side of the Mississippi. Perhaps most memorably, MoPac operated the Eagle passenger trains – a series of elegant post-war streamliners. They’re long gone now. The same industry pressures that decayed America’s rail in the 20th century forced MoPac to merge with Union Pacific.
Still, the old railways haunt Austin. In the Nineties, you could still step on old train tracks on Fourth Street, when The Capital Grille was Spaghetti Warehouse. To this day, a defunct wooden railroad bridge crosses Shoal Creek, called the Third Street Railroad Trestle.
Another scene artist, Tim, showed me a reconstruction he’d made of a cotton press that once stood in Pleasant Valley. He knew it was there from insurance maps, but had to invent a design based on photos of contemporary presses since no photos of this particular press survived. Across the tracks, he’d built a restaurant with advertisements cut from a box of beans.
I asked if the restaurant was historic, too. He said no, the workers just needed somewhere to eat.
Every member had a story about the train.
Next to a miniature Studebaker sign, a member told me of his childhood beside the Illinois Central tracks. The train roared past his house several times a day, hauling coal and timber. He told me that the moment local kids heard the train, they flocked outside with arms outstretched, ready for the Jolly Ranchers the conductor threw from the caboose.
As his model Illinois Central rolled by, I couldn’t help but notice the care put into that final orange car.
Jackobs recalled watching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus train cross Town Lake and unload its elephants onto Third Street for a parade down Congress. On one of his favorite pieces he made, the James Greene General Merchandise store Downtown, Jackobs placed dime-sized circus posters.
Given what Jackobs had told me about the boomerang path many modelers take to the hobby, I had gone in expecting to only see folks above the prodigal 30. Not only were there younger members, but they were in the thick of things.
The trains of one of the younger members, Nano, caught my eye. Unlike many of the other models, Nano’s was covered in graffiti and fake rust. When Nano’s train popped off the track, Jackobs lifted it back into place before I’d even realized what happened. He told me Nano had a gift for “rust bucket” trains.
Nano excitedly told me how to achieve the effect: layers and layers of oil paints, ranging from burnt sienna to umber. The graffiti was simple acrylic, with the catgirls on the side done by a friend.
I saw a bit of second-hand pride from Jackobs, himself a skilled scene artist. A member mentioned that Jackobs was a recognized Master Model Railroader by the National Model Railway Society.
While Jackobs is humble, his scenes command attention. In his mid-century Taylor scene, tiny Texans shoot the breeze from their porches while their dust-stained curtains hide their slumbering families from the train horns. In the model Downtown Austin, Jackobs used resin to make muddy tire tracks and puddles, as though a rain had passed.
To earn the Master Model Railroader distinction, modelers must display competency in several areas: equipment, setting, construction & operation, and “service to the hobby.”
That last area struck a particular chord after meeting the society. Everyone seemed happy to help.
I especially saw this trait in Joel, the “tech guy.” For most of my visit, he was stuck hunched over the layout with tools and a few fellow modelers watching intently. Joel was put in charge of the computer system that allowed the trains to cooperate.
Joel is also working on an open-source software with some modelers online to help with train control details. He said it only felt right to make the software open-source; after all, it was a publicly available software that allowed their own layout to function.
All this modeling worked in service of creating “glimpses” of something. Glimpses of Austin’s past. Of a train-filled future. Of serenity from their adult lives. Of their childhoods.
I only wished they were right about the clear MoPac.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to more accurately reflect Steve Jackobs’ train layouts.