Just about the only thing separating the adults from the kids Friday at the 28th Model Train Festival was height. Young or old, they all stared in rapture as trains disappeared into tunnels, went over bridges and passed through painstakingly detailed landscapes spread around the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma.
Just inside the museum’s main entrance, a crowd gathered around a Lionel train display where the level of realism was sending jaws agape. In one corner of the set-up, a group of tiny men were digging next to a track. As if by magic, the little workers were moving back and forth with their Lilliputian picks and shovels while another, a welder, was sending a blue light across the scene.
Nearby, a Saturn 5 rocket — the booster that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s — was sitting on its launch pad. It seemed ready for takeoff as steam came from its base.
And yes, there were trains. Many, many trains.
This reporter was briefed on the Lionel display by young enthusiast Jem Phillips, who was visiting the show from King County with his mother Anne. The 9-year-old has a model of a Saturn 5 at home, along with several different types of train sets.