AUBURN – Quinton Fraser, 6, has been a fan of trains for as long as he could remember.
“I like steam trains,” said Quinton. “I’ve liked watching them ever since I was a baby.”
As Quinton wondered at the endless model trains running on tracks throughout the Great Falls Model Railroad Club on Sunday, his grandmother considered signing him up for a club membership.
For its 2025 “ExTRAINaganza,” Auburn’s Great Falls Model Railroad Club opens its doors to the public this weekend and last, bringing in train enthusiasts of all ages.
“We’ve got kids from ages 10 to 85 in the club,” said Paul Lodge, 85, of West Minot.
The club, formed in 2007, meets on Wednesdays and Saturdays and boasts model trains in every major size. In addition to bringing their models to local events, like the Lewiston-Auburn Balloon Festival, the annual ExTRAINaganza is a chance for the club to share its passion and connect with potential new members.
“That’s a big deal, because we’ve got guys with no hair or some gray hair, and we’ve got a wide variety of age levels so that we keep going,” said Lodge.
Allorah Johnson, 8, has been coming to the club since she was four with her father, a longtime model train enthusiast.
“I like making the little layouts,” said Allorah. “And showing other kids how to make the trains go.”
Her father, Travis Johnson, joined the club in 2008, and is more interested in the mechanics of the trains than the scenery. That’s where he hopes his daughter will fill in.
“She’s been a club member since the moment she was born,” said Johnson.
The model railroad hobby comes with a lot of lingo, even down to the sizes of the trains – “G gauge,” “N scale,” “American Flyer S gauge,” and “HO scale.” Club member Franklin Trumann, 11, said there’s a steep learning curve when you enter the world of model railroads.
“Pretty much when I try to explain anything to my friends, they just think I’m talking about, like, rocket science or something. To be honest, if you don’t really know a ton about trains, you don’t really know anything about trains,” said Franklin. He’s joined the other model train lovers in Auburn every Saturday for two years from either Bridgton or Portland.
Jeff and Jeannie Harsha, of Rockland, took their time inspecting all the hidden scenes within the one giant “HO scale” rail model that takes up the entirety of the club’s basement. The scene was nostalgic for Jeff Harsha, who remembers building the papier-mâché mountains, building and tracks for model railroads in the attic with his father growing up.
“We got really into the scenery part of it,” said Jeff Harsha, 72. “We’d spend every evening up there modeling it.”
Jeff Harsha has not built model trains since childhood, but he still has a box of the trains in the basement.
“We have a 2-year-old grandson, so maybe that’s a future project,” said Jeannie Harsha, 71.
