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Model trains keep rolling along at fall open house
AUSTINTOWN
Jack DeMain, third-most senior member of the Youngstown Model Railroad Association, has had a love affair with model trains since he got his first Lionel set in 1946 when he was 6.
“I still have it, and it still runs,” said DeMain, who worked at and then owned Amer’s Hobby Shop on Market Street in Boardman for a combined 54 years before closing two years ago.
“The internet killed us,” DeMain said Saturday during the first day of the Youngstown Model Railroad Association’s fall open house at the former Four Mile Run Christian Church, 751 N. Four Mile Run Road.
The open house continues from noon to 6 p.m. today, Saturday and next Sunday, and Dec. 2-3.
“All little kids love trains. The time to involve them in the hobby is when they are young,” said DeMain, who joined the model train association in 1957 and retired in 1996 after 35 years in Youngstown’s engineering department.
Following his own advice, DeMain involved his sons, Todd of Austintown and Dean of Boardman, in the hobby when they were young, and said his 4-year-old grandson, Michael Cole of Boardman, already loves trains.
Model Railroad Association member Donald Lakin of Lowellville also got his interest in trains as a youth.
“My dad set up a model train on the dining room table to keep me amused while my mom went bowling,” said Lakin, who with his friend, Ed Williams of Boardman, built a large, intricate steelmaking display that Lakin operated during Saturday’s open house.
Brothers Eli and Zac Sedlacko, 8 and 7, respectively, were impressed with an amusement display that featured the Comet roller coaster.
“Pretty cool,” said Zac. “I love trains,” said Eli.
The boys are sons of Davina Sedlacko of Boardman and grandsons of Nickie Keagy of Columbiana, who said her grandfather had a train set-up that took up the whole basement of their home.
“As a kid, it was a big deal to go down there,” said Keagy.
Richard Titus of Hermitage, Pa., a first-time visitor to the model railroad event, brought his four grandchildren, Gabe, 9; Amelia, 8; Nicholas, 6; and Sam, 4, to see the display.
“Their eyes just lit up when they came in,” Titus said.
The Youngstown Model Railroad Association was founded by eight strangers with a common interest in “HO” model railroading who met April 1, 1957, at the home of George Sankey in Youngstown. The club’s first open house was Dec. 2-3, 1961, and it had several homes before renting and then buying the former Four Mile Run Christian Church.
The old sanctuary portion of the church is an “O” (1/4-inch scale) display that is primarily industrial and rural, and includes a scenery-filled river area crossed by a large, curved concrete viaduct.
The “HO” (1/8-inch scale) layout, on the lower level of the church, is almost fully detailed and includes a variety of industries, urban areas and mountain and wooded rural settings. A large city area, representative of Youngstown in the late 1950s, dominated the layout’s south end. The northern leg of the “HO” layout includes an operating amusement park and industrial complex.