Getting Back on Track: Keeping Train Collecting Alive
Working as an undertaker had some less than obvious perks. Molly’s working relationship with Donatelli Memorials led to them making this Lionel hearth stone pro bono 15 years ago.
Angle 1 of Fred Molly’s display
Angle 2 of Fred Molly’s display
Jim Moorhouse looks over his demo display, which looks much like the ones set up in store fronts in the 1950s.
David Todd stands on his weatherproofed porch holding one of his prized local replicas: a Castle Shannon trolley.
“South Hills junction. Stepping off,” a real-life Port Authority conductor says in an audio recording as the Castle Shannon trolley replica scoots around Todd’s track.
David Todd throttles his train full speed around the track.
A coin flip at a model train show could make or break you hundreds of dollars. It’s a sometimes costly game played by Bill Snodgrass to keep the shows interesting and lively. He’s one of a handful of locals who may be among the last devout generation of traders and buyers to keep the hobby of traditional model train collecting alive.
“A guy came up to my table haggling over a smaller gondola car. It was worth maybe three dollars. He said, ‘I’ll give you two dollars.’ Meantime, I’m also talking with someone who’s ready to throw down $300 for a rare engine. I said to the guy, ‘Two dollars and it’s yours.’ He kept going – $1.50, he said. I took it, put it on the ground and crushed it with my foot. There … it’s free!,” Snodgrass says with a laugh.
The 70-year-old Southpointe resident says you can’t have that kind of fun in online bidding wars. He said it probably wasn’t the best thing to do, but games like a coin toss are fun for everyone – or, at least for the winning party.
“I would do this at least once a show. You’re haggling with someone and you can’t agree. He wants it for $400, I’m saying $500. You can’t get to a middle ground, so, I say, ‘let’s flip for it!’ Hardly anyone has turned it down. And sometimes I lose by getting ahead of myself and saying let’s flip it for all or nothing,” he says.
Snodgrass recalls selling a 1952 Sante Fe engine to Neil Young at the popular York (County) Expo Train Show, which is sanctioned by the Train Collectors Association.
“He was wearing a cowboy hat. I didn’t recognize him. It was the 1980s, and well I wasn’t a big Neil Young fan, but he was a fan of that Sante Fe.”
Star power from Young, or Rod Stewart, also a collector, hasn’t done much to change the “old boys’ club” image of collecting post-war era trains from 1945-69 – they’re the idyllic lines everyone thinks about around Christmas time, but are seldom set out anymore – but one Castle Shannon resident is trying to make it a more family-friendly activity.
“We had a train ride for kids and food for everyone. It was our second year doing the October show at the Castle Shannon fire hall and we had nearly a thousand people come through to look over 108 tables of trains,” says Fred Molly, a 62-year-old volunteer organizer with the fire department.
The former undertaker is the last person who wants to see model train collecting die, so he’s doing everything he can ahead of the 2017 Pittsburgh TCA convention to bolster the area’s reputation for train collecting.
“People who look for this kind of stuff aren’t looking online. You have to leatherhoof it with traditional fliers and get it front of people’s faces. That’s what gets people excited: seeing a flier with the old-school Lionel font on it. It brings back memories for a lot of people, and that’s what connects with them to get them out to shows.”
Molly laments because of the old-fashioned approach to advertising, trading and collecting, it’s left younger people out of the mix.
“There are the newer models – fancy new stuff with complex electronics. But I am a purist like most who go to these shows. You want the stuff you had as a kid. And that’s where a lot of these old guys are going with it: they couldn’t have it as a kid, or missed a model year, and now they have the time and money to get that toy!”
Like most who collect, he was given a model train set prior to his first birthday – some even got their first sets before they were born.
“And each Christmas there’d be a new car under the tree. Or every couple of years, a new set or a new engine to pull the cars you got the last year,” Molly says.
Molly and his wife Marlene have three adult children, yet none of them is interested in train collecting, leaving his insured collection of nearly 700 pieces to face an uncertain future. Meantime, he’s trying to convince people to get offline and go to shows.
“I became a TCA member in 1991. The TCA is built on trust, and that’s why I’ve never been disappointed going to a show or mailing and trading with members across the country. If you get something you didn’t expect, which is rare, they give your money back. You can get swindled on eBay or other online sites. You don’t know whether you’re getting an authentic piece or a fake, fraud or forgery.”
Authenticity strikes at the core of why train collectors and sellers are so passionate about their hobby. Knowing the difference of color schemes or whether a model year was rubber-stamped or heat-pressed can be a difference of a hundred dollars. It seems arbitrary to outsiders, but it’s serious business to collectors, who pride themselves on knowing the subtleties of each year’s model variations, according to Molly.
“This isn’t like today’s collecting, where trains or other models or toys are produced in limited edition sets. These were limited because they didn’t sell enough one year, or, the manufacturer ran out. They’re rare because they’re rare – not because the manufacturer determines it’s going to be rare!”
Those who don’t go to shows or aren’t TCA members often rely on local experts to guide them in new purchases or replacement parts. One such man is Jim Moorhouse, whose store, The Train Gallery, in Dormont, has been a place for both novice and long-time collectors to talk shop and look over the newest catalogs.
“The first week of December, we’ll get the latest models. Lionel has trains now going for $2,000, but you can get starter sets for around $300,” the 59-year-old says.
The Train Gallery is a good place for do-it-yourself builders who want to get scenery and infrastructure to place around the track.
“For mountains and that kind of topography, it’s plaster over wire. Then we have lichen that you can paint different colors for the foliage and trees… the nice thing about this aspect of collecting is you’re never done; you can keep adding detail and make it photo-realistic,” he says, adding that this is a hobby for those who never want to grow up, but also for those who always want something new to do.
“This hobby is so unique because you can emphasize whatever aspects you want. And you get a practical education about electricity, a little wiring and plaster work, and of course planning the layout, the turns and the switches. You’re not just setting it up and playing with it.”
For history buffs, Moorhouse said Lionel and other makers specialize in regional-specific trains and cars. He said those, however, are for advanced modelers.
One collector who lives in Pleasant Hills sought out localized train replicas partly because his collecting mirrored his real-life work as a trolley communications operator.
“I worked for Port Authority for nearly a decade. I was a radio operator for a year or so for the entire South Hills trolley line in 1990-91,” says David Todd, 63, as he held up a replica Castle Shannon trolley.
“This is about six years old, and it’s really neat. They recorded a Port Authority conductor calling out the stops and it plays them as it goes around the track,” he said. Todd says he has $300,000 worth of trains (roughly 2,000 pieces) after collecting all these years, getting his first set when he was a year old.
“My 7-year-old grandson, he’s the heir to all this stuff. He still gets sets. And he’ll get these. Hopefully it’ll keep him busy. I mean, this stuff kept me off the streets when I was a kid,” Todd said.
Todd’s wrap-around setup of about 80 feet of inter-spliced track has been moved to his outside porch, which he weather-proofed and placed space heaters around the track so he can toil well into the winter. The hobby often encroaches on wives’ space, like it did for Molly.
“I have to take it all down. Been in the process of doing it now for a while. The missus wants her game room back,” Molly says. Likewise for Snodgrass.
“It took me two years to build it, a weekend to take it down,” he says. Yet, Moorhouse said the push and pull for space doesn’t have to end up with trains boxed up in the attic.
“This display here shows what you can do with a small amount of space. If you plan it right, you can keep rearranging and make the room,” he said, pointing to the 6’x9′ display.
But the trains are likely to end up in the attic anyway if younger generations don’t preserve the interdisciplinary hobby
“My grandson was 7 when he started getting into sets. He’s now 15 and says he’s looking to sell them. I was hoping he’d stay with it,” Snodgrass says.
“I doubt anyone in 20 years is going to be feeling nostalgic about a certain iPad. It’s just not the same,” Molly says. “But are these up and coming generations going to care anyway? I don’t know. It’s tough to tell when they’ve got their face stuck on a screen instead of outside playing in the dirt or down in the basement laying down their first sets of track.”