With magic, contradictions are permissible.
Jerry Harten, president of the Model Railroaders Association of Altoona, has said he and his friends just like to play with trains.
Last week, on the second story of the 12th Ward Civic Association building, 2930 S. 10th Ave., where the model railroaders have a big layout, library, walls adorned with locomotive artifacts and office, he said: "It's more than just playing."
It's just playing, and it's more than that.
For Harten, the magic grew from the enchantment of Christmas.
When he was a kid, his dad would put up a 4-by-8 foot Lionel train platform in their living room in Juniata.
No one was allowed to touch the platform until he finished.
Then there were the trains, the snow, the houses, the warm glow of the Christmas bulbs within the houses in that otherwise dark room. It was magic.
That's why he does it now.
Looking at the layout, you can feel yourself drawn in: the little houses, the details of their siding, the general store with the "Cola" sign on the side, the trucks - one with the hood up, under repair- the cars, including a 1957 Plymouth with the right wheel off, the owner kneeling, ready to put on a spare, the dirt road leading up the forested and rocky hill, the limestone quarry.
People see it and say, "Oh, I recognize that place, that's..."
It could be Huntingdon, somewhere on the road to Huntingdon, it could be heading out of Juniata, it could be heading up the mountain to Cresson, they think.
But it's not.
They're fictional places, created out of the imaginations of the members, aided by memories of actual places and research.
"It's nowhere," Harten said. "It isn't anything."
"It's what someone dreamed up," said Dan Snyder of Duncansville, an electronics specialist.
"We're trying to miniaturize life," Harten said.
They're collaborating novelists trying to create the proverbial fictional dream, one convincing enough to draw people in and keep them there.
The working itself can be a sort of dream, where the nights disappear, as if by magic.
They show up for an evening, put on a pot of coffee, break into groups and get to work - to play - and maybe someone looks up eventually and it's growing light outside.
Then Harten knows he's in trouble at home.
"Lost in time," he said.
It's fiction, but it's got to look credible, and that takes real work.
One member took six months to build the rock quarry, visiting real quarries, talking to real quarrymen so he'd know how to make it look authentic. The same member spent a year building a refinery and tank farm, visiting the real counterparts, even provoking suspicion by taking so many pictures.
Harten is scenery director.
"I tell somebody what I want and they do it," he said. "It seems to work."
It helps that the real railroad mainline is just behind the building.
Members used to dash out at midnight to see the Broadway Limited go by, when that historic passenger train was running.
But the freights still go by routinely.
Visitors have asked, when they heard the rumble and felt the building shake, about the impressive sound system.
Snyder's fascination with model railroading began when he was 12 and a friend had a layout.
They'd spend hours running the trains.
He liked watching the trains thread through the scenery. But ultimately, it was more technical than romantic for him.
He lived near York and would go to Williams Grove amusement park in Mechanicsburg, where there were rideable toy trains and hit-and-miss steam engines.
He was curious to know how they worked.
He lost touch with model railroading - without losing interest - until five years ago, when he visited the Altoona association layout.
"I remembered what it was like when I was a little kid," he said.
A career electrician, he found his path of least resistance to be the technical and mechanical aspects.
He has many likes including: the new electronic devices that enable multiple trains to run on one track, likes the idea of running the trains from a cell phone and the glowing "Reddy Kilowatt" billboard on the platform.
"To me that's cool stuff," he said.
He's the guy the other members go to for newfangled effects like squealing brakes and horns and automatic signal changes along the tracks.
He designed the signal system on the club layout.
The Model Railroaders Association began in 1949 in connection with Altoona's centennial celebration.
It came to the current location in 1970, after 21 years on the third floor of the former Webster Elementary School building near Altoona Hospital.
Dues are $120 a year.
"Where can you have this much fun for 10 bucks a month?" Snyder asked rhetorically.
"I can't imagine golfing," Harten said.
Snyder agrees: "Whacking that little white ball!" he said.
Asked for his high point as a model railroader, Snyder said, "I don't know if I've hit it yet."
Model railroading is his "passion," Harten said. "[But] it can be work," he said.
Then, true to the contradictions of magic, he said, "It's all fun."
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.
