All Aboard! Ontario’s largest train show a passion for all ages

All Aboard! Ontario’s largest train show a passion for all ages

Professional modelers were on full display as the Barrie-Allandale Railway Modelers (BARM) hosted their yearly event with hundreds of people making their way to Bradford Greenhouses in Barrie.

Henk Blom is the president of BARM said the event brings out train enthusiasts of all ages.

“We have set ups for trains that are running on on portable layouts and we have vendors selling all different kinds of, trains, all different scales from different areas,” said Blom. “So they might be European trains or Japanese trains, mostly North American trains.”

No matter the level of dedication, model trains can be for anyone.

“Model railroading is for everybody, if you’re the artistic type or you just want to have a model railroad in a small space, we can make it work for everybody,” said Blom. “It’s, a very artistic hobby if you want to be, or it can just be a plain circle of trains running around on a sheet of plywood.”

Kurt Cairns has been building model trains for years and said the tools are easy to find, but it takes time.

“It starts off with foam and we just work our way up from there, from plaster to to painting everything,” said Cairns. “Starting off with, with the black color of base paint and then working up our layers to different colors, adding textures of different materials of grasses, the trees are actually made of sea foam material and we use sawdust on top of that.”