Nov 28, 2004 By Rebekah Sungala 7 min read

Standing on a bench, Carter Higbee, the oldest member of the HObo Model Railroad Club in Connellsville, leans over two sets of railroad tracks while trying to tie a thin piece of rope from a timber truss bridge to a donkey engine. His fingers grasp the rope and work it around miniature winches and through miniscule-sized holes. A train chugs on another track behind him. A sign on the door reads: “Caution, model railroaders at play.” “You have to do this very carefully. We’re almost done,” said the 71-year-old, who built the truss bridge from scratch with help from Justin Malik.

“Ninety-five percent done,” Malik says.

Higbee and Malik have been working on the bridge for more than a year.

“Unfortunately, I’ve been standing on this bench for a long time,” said Higbee, smiling. He doesn’t seem to mind standing up there. In fact, he seems to love what he’s doing.

“I took the measurements for the bridge and built it at my home. Then I brought it here and put it in place,” he said, adding that trains have been a part of his life for many years.

Higbee said that he and Malik work on “railroad stuff” at his house often.

“I have two 6-foot butcher blocks. He sits at one end and I sit at the other,” he said.

Malik said they both built different pieces of the bridge. “Sometimes we’d have to help each other hold things together,” he said. The bridge was built with small pieces of wood and glue.

Ed Masciarelli, a longtime member of the railroad club, said that truss bridge is one of the new scenes added to the 700-square feet HO scale display that depicts the West Virginia Northern Railroad, a fictional line running from Connellsville to Charleston, W.Va.

Although the railroad never actually existed, the club has several area landmarks on the layout, including the former B&O Railroad Station and P&WV viaduct in Connellsville, the Hatfield’s Ferry Power Plant in Masontown and the Blue Label Brewery that was located in Uniontown. Additionally, all of the town names on the railroad depict real locations that the railroad, if real, would have run through.

“Everything in here is loosely based on real locations, even though this railroad line never existed,” said Masciarelli. “It’s a would of, could of, should of.”

Masciarelli said that everything is built according to HO scale. In HO scale, everything is 1/87 as big as the real thing. For example, a 6-foot man stands three-quarters of an inch tall. An 87-foot boxcar is one foot long.

“The truss, built to scale, represents a logging line that would have existed in this area up until the 1930s,” he said.

Higbee said that trains have fascinated him, like many other members of the club, for years.

“I got my first locomotive in 1958 when I was 21, and I’m still playing with trains,” he said. “I was asthmatic when I was young and I couldn’t sleep at night. So I would go over by my window, the radiator was right under it and it was nice and warm, and I’d watch the trains get filled with coal. I got fascinated by them, and I’ve been fascinated with them ever since.”

Picking up a small bunkhouse, Higbee points inside. There are people, tiny bunks and a potbellied stove inside.

“That little potbellied stove lights up,” he said. “It glows nice and red.”

Dan Robertucci, club president, stands behind Higbee and rubs one of the railroad tracks with a flat, pumice-like object called a Good Boy.

“It cleans the tracks; takes the oxidation off them,” he said.

Robertucci said the railroad club has been busy this year. “We’ve generated a lot of enthusiasm within the club this year, and we’ve accomplished a lot,” he said.

The club, which was founded in 1953, has been working on the West Virginia Northern Railroad Line for the last decade.

“Whenever people ask, I always tell them that we’re almost finished,” Masciarelli said. “A model railroad is never actually done. It’s a continuing process of change. We’re always looking to improve things; change things that didn’t work out as well as we had hoped.”

“What would we do if we finished it?” Higbee asked, chiming in.

Masciarelli said that the railroad club will hold three open houses so that the public can see what they have been up to. He said the building now has an elevator so everyone will have access to the train room, located on the third floor in the Connellsville Community Center. “We didn’t always have an elevator, and we had people say they’d like to come up but couldn’t handle all the steps. Now they’ll be able to come up and see the display. They can take the elevator.”

The scratch-built steel mill always amazes people, Masciarelli said. The mill, which was built by club member Chuck Pravlik, took about six months to complete.

“I just got into building steel mills,” Pravlik said, adding that he belongs to an organization that specializes in modeling Industrial America, particularly mills and coal mines that were located in the northeast. Pravlik also built a coal mine that is on display.

Masciarelli said he expects a good turnout for all three of the open houses. He said the club used to have two, but increased to three this year because of public demand.

“We usually get a couple hundred people each day,” he said. “A lot of people in this area are interested in trains. Fayette County used to be a big railroad area.”

According to Masciarelli, there are about 25 people in the railroad club; about 10 of them are active members.

“We’re a diverse group, and we’re always interested in new talent and looking for new people,” he said, adding that the club meets every Friday at 7 p.m. in the main train room.

Out in the hallway where there is more room, Mike Brnich works on his scene for the club’s new modular display. The scene depicts a HO-scale coal tipple built on a 2-foot-by-4-foot board. He coats a pile of black, gritty powder with hairspray.

“It’s supposed to be a pile of coal,” he said. “The hairspray works good. In a couple of minutes that powder will be stuck to the board and will be as hard as a rock.”

The portable modular display will be on display in the hallway outside of the main train room during all three of the open houses.

A different club member will make each section of it. Track will be laid down and a couple trains will run.

“It’ll be a little preview. We had a modular display in the past, but it was heavy and hard to put together,” Malik said. “Our new display will allow us to share our hobby with more people throughout the year.”

The HObo Model Railroad Club will hold an open house in the main train room from noon to 5 p.m. today, Dec. 5 and Dec. 12.

The room is located on the third floor, Room 301, of the Connellsville Community Center, 210 East Fairview Ave. Donations will be accepted. For more information, call 724-628-0228 or e-mail hobomodelrrclub@yahoo.com.