Model Citizens Page #6

I will try to evoke that

area as much as possible.

With the vegetation,

the color of the earth,

what crops may be grown

in the nearby fields,

all that sort of thing.

It's all part of the research

and all part of the fun.

- [Voiceover]

Photographer Steve Crist

is a well-known rail

fan, and researcher.

Crist is as committed to

preserving railroading's past

as he is to documenting

its present.

And he's sometimes

surprised by what he finds

in the images he scans

for historical archives.

- I recognized it

as being from the

1989 celebration

of Union Station.

And I recognized it

because I'm in the photo,

right there.

This is also under

consideration for our book.

Fortunately we have

the original negative

also from that same collection.

- [Voiceover] Like Steve Crist,

Jack Burgess, a retired

civil engineer for the city

of Newark California, is

a committed researcher.

But unlike Crist, he

works in three dimensions.

Everything on his layout,

even down to the

paint and wiring,

accurately represents the

Yosemite Valley Railway,

as it was in August, 1939.

- 25 years ago I had a couple,

a brother and a

sister, visit me,

that lived upstairs in

this building in 1939.

Their father was

a section foreman.

There was no agent at the time,

normally an agent

would live up there.

And they told me what

was in here and so forth,

and told me about the

buildings along here.

They also told me

that they had a radio,

they remembered having a radio.

And I had thought about,

when I was gonna

detail this building,

putting the radio in there.

But I thought man,

you're in the middle

of this steep canyon,

it's probably a 2,000

foot deep canyon.

Very steep walls.

The road goes back and

forth back and forth,

climbing all the way

down, even today,

and then climbs

up the other side.

And so I didn't put it in there.

But then later they told

me that they did have it.

And then many years later,

I come across another photo.

And this photo, which

was taken about 1942,

I got a print of the

original negative,

which was only about the

size of an index card,

scanned it, blew it up.

But look real carefully.

Here you can see

their radio antenna.

So they were absolutely correct.

If I was modelling 1942,

I would also add these.

These are service stars.

And that would show

that whoever lived,

was living here at that time,

had two boys

serving in the armed services

overseas during World War II.

- I want my trains

to sound realistic,

I want them to

run realistically.

I want them to be

a simulator of what

really happened at

some point in time.

Some people define the

time as August 1939,

one of my friends has got

it that narrowly defined.

One of them is actually

modelling a day

that he has a lot

of records for.

Some people model a year,

I'm modelling the fall of 1954.

Others model, let's say 1955.

Others model the

1950s, or the 1970s.

You can be picky about that or

you can ignore it completely.

- I model,

what's typically

southern California

into Phoenix, Arizona area.

So you've got the desert.

And it's Union Pacific,

it's a former Southern

Pacific Railroad line.

Now taken over by Union Pacific

and that's what I

have, strictly modern.

It's really modern,

so whatever's new,

I'm trying to get for my layout.

- I've been, in the

past 20 or so years,

I've narrowed my focus

down to modelling

the Burlington Northern Railroad

in Western Oregon

in 1971.

- I'm working on Cajon

Pass during World War II,

which is kind of an unusual

area for most model railroaders.

Cajon Pass is the,

one of three gateways,

into the Los Angeles basin

in southern California.

It's located just northwest

of San Bernardino.

Two railroads come

through the pass,

Santa Fe and Union

Pacific come through.

Burlington Northern

Santa Fe today.

Southern Pacific is

nearby at Colton,

and Pacific Electric ran

through that area as well.

- There's guys like

Jack Burgess who model

the Yosemite Valley

in September of 1939.

And he doesn't add

anything unless

he can find a picture of it.

- You might say, well that

is crazy and over the top.

But one of the

great things about

narrowing into a specific period

and specific

railroad is you don't

have to buy everything

that's out there.

So it really focuses your hobby

and focuses your collection

on things that are

appropriate for your period

and for your railroad.

I run a branch line railroading.

This is a smaller

scale railroading with,

based mainly on freight

and what you might call

mixed trains, trains that

knit small communities

in America together

once upon a time,

before the interstates.

And so,

it's a very specific

sort of thing,

but it really makes for, to me,

more interesting

modelling because

I can say no to a lot of things.

Being able to say

no to a lot of what

is out there is a

very good thing.

- This is,

maybe typical of

model railroader.

Some will say not.

We have traveled

around the world

and visited many model

railroaders homes

and some have much

more than this.

And, of course, some

have a lot less.

So this is typical of a model

railroad collection, I think.

- I have a lot of

equipment that I've

collected over the years.

I also have a lot of kits

that need to be built.

So there's more than

a lifetime worth,

and I obviously don't

have a lifetime left.

But there's plenty

to keep me busy.

(mumbles)

But to me,

it's sort of like the journey is

more important than

the destination.

The doing of it,

the creating of it,

the modelling of it

is more important

than finishing it, getting

it done, if you will.

And just enjoying the journey.

Is kinda what it's

all about for me.

- [Voiceover] Creatives,

control freaks,

and obsessive world historians,

you are not alone.

Of course, some of

you would like to be.

- Some of us are joiners

and some of us are not joiners.

- I don't even know

an N-scale guy,

I don't have any friends

that are N-scale guys,

not because I don't like them,

we just don't have

anything in common.

It's like five or six

different factions

and we're not rivals in any way,

we don't dislike

each other, but,

we just probably

wouldn't hang out

with each other because

he's a Lionel guy,

he's an N-scale guy

and I'm an HO guy.

And even some of the HO guys...

Kinda fit themselves in a

little box and don't come out.

Or I'm a prototype

guy so I don't even

talk to those ready-to-run guys.

We're all the same guy.

- There are two different

kind of model railroaders.

There's the people that

get involved in the

NMRA and they join these clubs

and they get together,

the camaraderie.

And then there's

the lone wolves,

and a lot of them are,

what I call, the lone wolf.

There's a lot of

people that are,

I'm not gonna use

the term nobodies,

because everybody is somebody,

but they're individuals.

And they have, I know people

right here in Pasadena,

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