On the right track

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Rob Schiavone, of Carol Stream, oversees the performance of two trains as they cross over a doorway in the Heritage N-Trak Group model train display at Morris Area Public Library on Wednesday. Uneven tracks had been causing derailments. (Herald Photo by Adam Nekola)

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As three long, tiny trains snake down their own rail lines, kids stare intently; focused on their every move. They love the animations, too – a windmill that turns, cows that “moo,” and cartoons playing on the drive-in movie screen.

All these details and more can be found in the model train display set up at the Morris Area Public Library until Saturday.

Some of the kids visiting will stand in one spot and count the cars on each train, said Heritage N-Trak Group member Dan Feeley, of Braidwood.

“One kid at the Oswego show came with his own stool,” Feeley added.

Adults appreciate all the many hours of hard work that go into the modules and enjoy wondering how pieces were made and how all those corn plants were fashioned and placed seemingly one by one into Les Cisco’s farm scene.

Some may even recognize one module as a scene from Coal City and another from Streator.

The group has set up its model train display at the library for several years. It takes up most of the downstairs and is open for viewing Friday and Saturday.

N-Trak trains are 1/160 to scale. The tracks – there are three – going through several modules made by the various members of the group. There are some modules that are still works in progress, and others are all finished. Many are set in specific decades, or even in a particular year.

The most popular module in the display right now, Cisco said, is the drive-in movie theater. Roger Simmons, of Morris, said he got the idea for that one after seeing a similar set-up at an Ohio show. The module is fashioned on what drive-in theaters used to look like in 1956.

The movie screen is a five-and-a-half inch DVD player mounted on the back wall of the module. The base of the player is hidden underneath.

Although Simmons can pop in any DVD he wants, he had a cartoon running on Wednesday. The old drive-ins showed cartoons just before the movies or in between double features.

The module is made with a Styrofoam top with a cork road bed for the train tracks and for the movie parking lot. There is a concession stand, a playground, and little sloped areas for the cars complete with the radio stands for the sound.

People are here and there, but mostly in their cars. One is being helped out of a trunk. Burma-Shave signs dot the road outside, as a tiny police car hides behind a billboard.

Simmons said he has been playing with model trains for 25 years.

“I’ve always liked trains,” he said. “My family worked for the Rock Island Line.”

Rob Sciavone was manning his N-trak narrow gauge train and tracks that he said were common in mountains where it was difficult to dig tunnels for the tracks. His module has a little mine tunnel, a separating house, cows that actually moo, a water tank that fills up train tankers with “water,” and a running windmill.

Les Cisco, of Morris, said he was born into a railroad family. His father and grandfather worked for the Illinois Central line out of Clinton.

“I had a model railroad since I was nine or ten years old,” Cisco said.

He put his hobby on the back burner when he was a college student and when his children were very young, then got back into it when his oldest child – Travis – was two or three.

He met the Heritage N-Trak Group in 1994 when they were at the library. Cisco said he spends a lot of time working on his modules. Forty feet of the library display are his. He said it’s fun, but challenging. It pulls on several areas of expertise, such as a knowledge of basic carpentry and electricity and an eye for detail.

Cisco also loves getting behind the history of his projects. For his Streator scene, he and his son took a road trip through the area, following the tracks to see where they went.

Later, he researched the history of Streator through its historical society. A detail of the town’s plan hangs behind his module, along with photos he has taken of trains there.

Many of the club’s members pride themselves on having as few things from a kit as possible. Most objects in the modules are fashioned by hand, sometimes using items one would never imagine in a model train set. Tree bark, for example, serves as nice rocks on a hillside.

Cisco also has two heavy pieces of actual rail in his display. People usually can’t figure out what those are, he said.

One of the things Cisco likes best is when he meets someone who recognizes the actual site of his model. He remembers meeting one man who said he did his apprenticeship on the very Vermillion River bridge that Cisco has in his module.

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