Making rail history more accessible

 The railroad hobby seems to be filled with an almost endless array of niches. We have modelers and photographers and collectors and note-takers and videographers and audiophiles and preservations and the list goes on. It goes without saying the opportunity for crossover between niches is also quite broad.

 

Thus we have the Milwaukee Light Engineering Society: part model railroad, part preservation, and part educational outreach. The group’s 7.5-inch gauge outdoor railroad boasts about two miles of track on 6.5 acres. The models’ nominal 1.5-inch scale makes them more manageable (most times) than full-size railroad equipment but still substantial enough to convey the bulk and heft of railroading.

 

 On my first visit on a recent Sunday I encountered a small group of members on the club’s grounds just north of the Milwaukee suburbs rebuilding a bridge. And I mean a bridge. One misstep would leave you with a not insignificant fall into a genuine body of water. There’s no model railroad magic here.

 

“But it’s still a model,” you say. Yes, yes it is. And there’s the interesting twist to this. It’s still a model. It’s accessible, and it’s affordable.

 

Gone are the days of taking your train-crazed kids to the rail yards to see how railroading gets done. Even museums and tourist lines are clamping down on access to equipment and facilities with growing litigation and mounting regulations. But on a one-eighth-scale model of a railroad you can see how knuckle couplers work, how to perform a run-around or flying switch, and what a long-gone railroad would’ve looked like on an equally extinct locomotive model, for less than a good paint job on a full-size diesel. And you won’t find the FRA nosing around, either.

 

 Each school bus and minivan that stops at the club grounds provides an enormous opportunity for outreach. Demonstrations can include railroad engineering, safety, and operations. Younger kids can learn the proper place and time to cross tracks safely and older kids can explore what a career in railroad engineering – a field with great need – entails.

 

You don’t need to buy equipment to take part, either. I’m told a quarter of the Milwaukee club’s membership owns equipment. The rest of the members, for a $35 yearly associate membership, help out with maintenance and improvements on the property, like the bridge replacement shown above. Founded in 1969, the club nonprofit educational organization. There are more than 60 members in the club.

 

The Milwaukee Light Engineering Society is open to visitors most Sundays June through October, “if the gate is open.” For more information on the group, visit its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/MLESRR.