Lynchburg Rail Day draws a crowd

Ed and Jean Fielding showed up at the Boonsboro Ruritan Club Saturday morning with one purpose in mind: helping kids have fun with electric trains.

Lynchburg’s 30th annual Rail Day kicked off at 9 a.m., and until closing time at 4 p.m., Ed Fielding said he and his wife, who teaches third grade at James River Day School, hardly saw a minute that didn’t include children crowded around them.

The two single-loop tracks they set up in the far left corner of the room, they said, were a big hit.

“You look down and see a little one with his head on the floor watching the train come around, that makes it worth it,” said Ed Fielding.

“There’s not somebody over there hollering at them about, ‘now don’t touch, don’t do this, don’t do that,’” he said. “We let them run it, we let them touch it, we let them change things. It’s theirs.”

Gino Palladino, of Lynchburg, came to the event with two youngsters in tow — his son Bo, 7, and Bo’s friend, Kane Campbell, also 7.

Palladino coaxed them around the exhibits, but eventually they settled back down by the Fieldings.

“This is the only thing I control,” Bo said, taking turns with his friend, adding he preferred the larger, shorter train.

“The bigger trains can go faster,” he said.

“I like steering them a little bit,” said Kane, “because you can get them … as slow as you want, and as high as you want.”

“I want one like this,” he added.

The centerpiece of the gathering, for a somewhat older audience, featured various N-scale (1:160) engines and their cars running across sections of Virginia, Pennsylvania and some unidentified territories.

Members of the Lynchburg Area N-Scalers brought in their own sections of track, complete with buildings and scenery, and fastened them together over several hours on Friday.

“You take these to different shows anywhere in the country, and in theory, you’re supposed to be able to connect in,” said Lowell Walters, a member of the N-Scalers. Saturday’s event, he said, was his third at the expo.

The corner section he supplied is based on the limestone areas in Pennsylvania in the fall.

Trains have been a part of Walters’ life since early in his childhood.

Since then, he said, he’s seen a number of changes, including the amount of trains that can be run on a single circuit.

“Back in the old days you could only run one train at a time on a circuit,” he said.

At various points Saturday, he said, as many as six trains may have been running on the circuit at once.

Norris Deyerle, the event’s coordinator, said he didn’t know how many people showed up Saturday, but about 450 paid to get in.

Children were allowed inside the doors for free.

The proceeds, Deyerle said, are mainly used to support preservation efforts in Central Virginia, particularly restoration of the Virginian Railway Station in Roanoke, which was destroyed by a fire in 2001.

But the purpose, he said, goes beyond raising funds.

“The purpose of it is to get children interested in model trains,” he said.

“Just like anything, if you don’t have something that, you know, you can create interest in for the children, eventually it’s going to die.”

Palladino said his interest in trains hasn’t died since his childhood, though time restraints keep him from spending much time on the hobby.

“Any kind of exhibit like this, I’m usually there,” he said. “If someone says they’ve got a train set at their house, I’m at their house.”