Thursday, December 3, 2015, Foley Model Railroad

We finally stopped at the Foley Train Museum when the Model Railroad was operating.  I highly recommend it to anyone in the area! It was an absolute gem.

The display was huge (20 feet by 60 feet) and there was more than 1/4 mile of track!  I forgot how many trains were operating, but let's just say there was always something moving.

The club members clearly enjoyed their hobby.  One invited Joani down in the working pit so she could get closer to the action.

The Union Station was modeled after the station in Nashville, TN. Having spent some time there, I can say it looked pretty good. Across from the station, in the town square, I noticed a small train engine with an engineer riding atop the locomotive while kids were seated behind in open cars.  I thought it would be over the top if it also moved.  One of the club members flipped a switch and away it went.  I think he said it was an N-gauge track and train.  I was blown away.  I pretty much forgot about the trains at that point as I searched the layout for more of their unique whimsy.

The scenery was, by far, the most intricate I had ever seen in model railroading.  The circus was in town complete with three rings under the big top, elephants in a side tent and a working Ferris wheel.  To the right of the circus, you can see the drive-in movie theater was showing a triple feature (they had a DVD playing through a 10 inch diagonal LCD panel).

In the hobo camp off to the side of the tracks, you could see a policeman had just apprehended an escaped convict.  I suspect he had slipped away from the chain gang working on the road on the other side of town.

In the firehouse, an alarm sounds, the door rolls up, a fireman slides down the pole and the truck pulls out of the building.

The work shed was hand built by one of the members.  The motor on the right turned an overhead spindle that, in turn, drove all of the tools. Out of the picture to the left, a random blinking LED did a good job of looking like the sparks from some arc welding work.

A fire at the Fireworks factory of all places! The lights were flashing on every truck and the poor woman on the third floor, who was in the shower, had to be rescued naked.

These guys had a tough job painting the trestle iron. I'm sure they would rather have been at the fish camp on the lake far below them.

High in the hills moonshiners tended to the still while their pet bear treed a revenuer who had come to investigate.

To give us a better idea of just how many lights were in the little town they turned the room lights off - very impressive!

We arrived at the Foley Model Train exhibit thinking we would spend a few minutes looking it over. After more than an hour we reluctantly left, but only because we had other commitments. Be sure you make time to see this if you are ever in the area!