Dominick Tucker, 4, looked on with fascination as a variety of trains traversed a miniature landscape set up last weekend at Richards High School in Oak Lawn.
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“He’s a train freak,” said his mother, January Tucker of Oak Lawn.
She said Dominick has a wooden train but he wants to start collecting the plastic and metal ones that move, so she ordered him one for Christmas.
Dominick was just tall enough to peer over the top of a layout put together by the Baden Powell Modular Railroad Club.
Many of the train enthusiasts in the group started collecting trains when they around Dominick’s age.
The railroad layout was one of 17 set up by more than a dozen Chicago area railroad groups during the 15th annual Southland Model Railroad Show at the school.
Some of the layouts were as big as 50 feet wide.
The event was organized by Richards band director Charles Martin.
“It’s become our major fundraiser,” he said.
Martin said the funds raised, which mostly come from $6 admission fees, help pay for travel expenses for choir and band students.
He said the Richards band performed at Disneyland in Florida last school year and is looking to perform this school year in New York and Washington, D.C.
Martin originally wanted to set up a craft fair as a fundraiser in 2003 but a band student parent suggested they organize a railroad show, instead.
“Everybody does a craft show,” he said.
Martin said the event has grown in its 15 years and usually attracts about 2,000 visitors over the course of its two days.
Two of this year’s visitors were Aiden Shewmaker, 5, and his sister, Aubrey, 9, of Tinley Park.
“My grandson is a train nut,” said Aiden’s grandfather Bob Dudek. “He knows everything about trains that we don’t.”
Frankfort resident and Richards science teacher Tom Hayden brought his family to the event and they spent hours looking at the different layouts.
“My son, Nathan, really loves trains,” he said. “We came last year. This is a very nice set up.”
The event also included a Lego railroad display which included a 6-foot-tall Willis Tower made of about 30,000 Lego pieces built by Vern Tompkins of the Chicago Lego User Group.
“We build to share,” said Ben Merrill of the Lego group. “For me, it’s a creative outlet.”
The event also included 20 vendors selling new and used model train and Lego kits.
The railroad show is on a different date every fall, Martin said, because it can’t coincide with a Richards home football game. That would create parking issues.
Martin said he’ll retire after next year, but he hopes the show continues. He acknowledged it’s a lot of work to organize.
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So, the 2018 version Southland Model Railroad Show may be the last one.
Frank Vaisvilas is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.