This Saturday, members of the West Florida Railroad Museum and the Emerald Coast Garden Railway Club will make tracks to the 2014 Wiregrass Model Railroad Show September 20 to 21 in Dothan. The festival will be at the main exhibit building at the National Peanut Festival Fairgrounds starting at 9 a.m. with a $5 admission for adults, no charge for children under 12.
Ed Dice with the WFRM and ECGRC said, “We have being participating with the train show for several years. This time we have nine ECGRC members setting up and staffing the run. We will set up a large scale train exhibit (G scale) like the garden trains we operate at the RR Museum. Typically the size we get allotted is 25 by 40 feet. Sounds big, but we fill it up fast with several operating trains.”
No competition is part of the show, but there is a sales component. Dice said, “Folks can rent a table and sell their surplus trains. Alabama tax laws may come into play, but we always end up bringing back more things than we took. My van is often very full coming back.”
During shows like this, Dice said he’s often explaining things to visitors with questions like costs, how to get started, and where the Bagdad museum is located. The kids, he said, enjoy watching the trains. “We have had kids return year after year and stand or sit them hypnotized for hours watching the trains. Others kids get a chuckle out of the various whimsical trains, like the Cartoon Train.” Dice said visitors get a fire ignited in them by seeing the displays of trains.
Dice said train enthusiasts can look forward to an informal Old Fashioned Tailgate Swap Meet at the Milton Railroad Depot in October. “This is mostly a morning event where train hobbyists get together to swap, trade, sell and buy trains. It is not any sort of money maker for the RR Museum. I am happy if the coffee and donut sales cover the cost of the donuts. It is always a big hit when CSX brings a train by on the mainline, bigger the better.” For more information on the swap meet, email Dice at EdwardDice@aol.com
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Train museum members ride to Dothan for show