Extraordinary Stories From An Ordinary Guy: The "Miniature Master Builder: Part I

It was an ordinary day. Standing in the basement of my friend Jere taking photos of the many buildings he has created for his HO train layout. Jere and his wife Sue moved to State College, Pennsylvania in 1999 after spending most of their lives in Lancaster. Jere and I grew up together, living slightly more than a block from each other near the Lancaster Railroad Station. Jere's father worked at the local Railway Express which was part of the train station located on the north edge of the city. We first met in grade school and graduated from Manheim Township High School together along with Sue. Jere's love of trains grew stronger and stronger and when Jere and Sue moved to Willow Street Pike in 1973 he set up an HO model railroad in the third floor of his home. I too did the same thing when my wife Carol and I moved to our first home in nearby Grandview Heights, but not to the extent of Jere's layout. I eventually gave up the hobby, but Jere never lost his passion for railroading. But, what is more remarkable is his passion for building structures to HO scale, all by hand. His layout in his State College home fills the better part of his basement and as I look around his layout what impresses me the most are the many structures that fill the spaces between the tracks. He told me every structure was built from scratch except for three units where were kits that had to be assembled.

Lancaster Train Station, playground for Jere and LDub. Click to enlarge.

There are ten different scales that can be used in model railroading with HO being the most popular: 1/87th size of the real thing. Jere stuck with HO since there is more of a variety of building materials, supplies, equipment and accessories made for this model train scale. He buys most of his building materials online, but many items he makes himself if necessary to complete what he may be building. He has chosen to build many of the houses and businesses from the old neighborhood where we grew up together.

Jere's HO scale representation of the platforms and tracks at the station.

His most impres- sive structure is the train station with it's two platforms and main structure. When he dims the lights and has the trains moving in and out of the station, you would swear you were standing on one of the platforms waiting for your train to arrive. During my recent visit I took a few photos to share with you showing Jere's skill at building in miniature. Hope my photos do justice to his building skills. I have shown what the original building looked like as well as Jere's presentation of that building. Tomorrow I will feature Jere's remarkable representation of his home on Willow Street Pike in Lancaster. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.