Model railroaders hope new St. Paul site gets hobby back on track

In St. Paul's Midway neighborhood, a railway with long tunnels and high bridges is undergoing a massive relocation. If you've had kids in the past 30 years, you may have seen it.

It's the signature exhibit of the Twin City Model Railroad Museum, a painstakingly detailed model of the Twin Cities in miniature, including the Stone Arch Bridge, the river area and milling district. Recently, after three decades of cultivating the model trains and scenery at St. Paul's Bandana Square, the volunteers carefully began taking it apart.

It's headed for a new life at a site near St. Paul's former Amtrak depot. The move comes at a time when model railroading is at a crossroads, struggling to excite a younger generation as its biggest backers grow older.

The museum had been drawing about 35,000 visitors a year, with 3- to 12-year-olds and their parents providing the core audience. But there wasn't enough traffic at Bandana Square to cover the rent. Backers hope the new site can spark renewed interest in their work and draw bigger crowds.

A recent visit found some model trains circulating on a small display at the museum's new site. But the main attraction is still a work in progress. Pieces of the main set-up await reassembly. Leaders hope to be ready by the middle of next month to offer weekend previews.

With more than 1,500 feet of track and dozens of locomotives and cars, the museum's primary train display will be about half the size of a basketball court when fully reassembled. Some parts date back to the 1930s, when the layout resided at St. Paul's Union Depot.

"The uniqueness about this is both the history in the art that goes behind it," said Peter Southard, who teaches business at the University of St. Thomas but at the museum is known as the train doctor for his repair skills. "The wiring for this is incredibly complicated. ... There are miles and miles of wire."

The roughly 150 museum members are mostly from generations when boys felt model trains were must-have. Nowadays, model train lovers tend be north of 50, 60 years old, and include the likes of David Letterman, who spoke on his show about his love of model trains.

The addiction can be expensive. Some people sink tens of thousands of dollars into trains and elaborate displays for them. You can spend thousands on just one train, whether it's a coveted Depression-era classic or a high-tech modern-era train. There was a time when collectors could rationalize 4- and 5-figure purchases as good investments. Hobbyist magazines ran articles about trains appreciating in value, like stocks and bonds.

"That didn't turn out to be a too good of a strategy," said Scott Griggs who runs the Georgia-based train hobby site Trainz.com and buys and sells millions of dollars' worth of trains a year.

The supply is growing as model railroaders age and pass their collections on to heirs. Griggs said he hears a lot from people who think they've inherited gold.

"It's like, 'Oh my gosh, I found this train and it's in really great shape and I think it's worth a fortune' and it's like, 'Well, I hate to tell you but it's really not,'" he said. "There are certainly some trains out there are still worth $5,000, $10,000 a train set. But that's really rare."

Sets generally fetch $200 or so, at best, depending on their condition, rarity, and how much collectors covet the individual models.

As vintage trains fade in value, what's left of model railroading is going digital.

"You can have a computer run the trains if want. That leaves a lot of room for on people who may not be into tweezers and paint brushes but who are into programming and electronics," said Gerry Leone of Minnetonka, vice president special projects for the National Model Railroad Association.

Lionel Trains now offers a train controller app for iPads. CNNMoney reported two years ago the company pulls in $100 million year.

Leone said membership in the model railroad association had been slipping but has held steady for the past five years. "I want with all my heart to believe that it (model railroading) is not at the end of the line but who knows what's going to happen."

Local train shows still draw good crowds of collectors and hobbyists. About 500 people paid $5 each to get into a recent train show at Century College in White Bear Lake.

Michael Helde of south Minneapolis came to show off his reproductions of classic Lionel trains from the 20s and 30s. "These are toys. They're meant to be played with. Children will stand here for hours watching my trains go around. "

There were several possible young model railroading recruits at the show, including 8-year-old Ethan Olive of White Bear Lake, who said he was thinking about buying some vintage trains.

"They had good designs," he said. "It's cool to set up and drive them around."

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