We are working on a new special issue! Classic Toy Trains’ next special interest publication features 14 layouts you can visit across the United States, from the The Choo Choo Barn, the Chicagoland Lionel Railroad Club, the Virginia Museum of Transportation, the Illinois Railway Museum, and much more. Plus, find a handy reference map and the entire list of public layouts. The issue will be available in mid October on shop.trains.com and by calling 877-243-4903.
We share this story of the Edgerton Model Railroad Club in Rochester, N.Y., a history layout open to the public. This article is taken from Families & Toy Trains.
“Men believing in boys” – in four words we explain many of the stories in this special-interest publication. Fathers, grandpas, older brothers, or uncles concluded someone younger in their family would benefit from playing with an electric train and were determined to make certain that little fellow had one.
Too bad not every kid had so generous a figure in their lives. Other boys growing up from the 1930s to the 1950s understood that no matter how much their parents loved them and wished to answer every hope and dream, there simply wasn’t enough spare money to buy an electric train.
Underprivileged and neglected children lived in every city. Social workers and directors of charitable organizations took steps to help those less-fortunate boys and girls. So also did other professionals, notably police officers and firefighters. Those individuals knew what it meant to be a responsible and caring dad or brother.
Help in one community
In Rochester, a commercial and manufacturing center near Lake Ontario in western New York, a group of public servants sought in 1949-50 to reach out to kids in need. They decided an O gauge display was the best way to improve the lives of younger residents while teaching them proper work habits and the respected values of discipline, thrift, and cooperation.
Lionel, asked to assist the effort and donate supplies, did so enthusiastically. With volunteers in the Police Athletic League, they built one of the greatest and most influential layouts, one aptly named “Model Railroad Heaven.”
Most importantly, the landmark display has survived. You can see firsthand the superb work executed by the same craftsmen who designed and constructed the greatest display at the showroom Lionel maintained in New York City.
Still thriving
Before delving into the story behind the development of the O gauge display in Rochester, let’s take a look at what remains. What the late Capt. Henry H. Jensen of the Rochester Police Department (he died in 2001) presciently called “Model Railroad Heaven” consists of four independent three-rail dioramas. Each has as the theme of its scenery and painted backdrop a different season of the year. Imagery linked to the skyline of Rochester characterizes one of them.
For about the first decade of the display’s existence, the Police Athletic League supervised its maintenance and operation. The PAL was an auxiliary organization of the police department, striving to improve the lives of local youngsters and take positive steps to steer them away from committing crimes.
In 1961, not long after the PAL was disbanded, control of the O gauge model railroad shifted to the Bureau of Parks & Recreation. That body, funded and run by the City of Rochester, eventually negotiated an arrangement with one of the local model railroad clubs to supervise and keep up the four layouts.
The dedicated hobbyists at the Edgerton Community Center have done that and more for the past half-century. Thanks to them, the glory of Model Railroad Heaven lives on and visitors can explore the display.
One man’s vision
Admittedly, the four layouts, with their rugged benchwork, scale miles of track, realistic landscaping, and intricate electrical wiring, represented the contributions of dozens of individuals. Police officers, entrepreneurs, carpenters and electricians on the city payroll, designers affiliated with department stores, and local artists and model railroaders chipped in hours, dollars, and sweat. They were men believing in boys.
Nonetheless, a single gentleman deserved credit for envisioning Model Railroad Heaven and doing everything in his power to make it a reality. Henry Jensen was one of those public-minded citizens every municipality needs.
Born in Denmark, Jensen had immigrated to the U.S. as a boy and settled in Rochester with his parents. Civic pride and a desire to improve his community led to his joining the police department in 1936. There he saw the poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods and vowed to do what he could to help the children he encountered. Somehow, they must avoid the dire fate of their parents.
Jensen had been hearing about the formation of Police Athletic Leagues in some other cities. Officers like himself set up basketball leagues, baseball teams, and boxing matches to help troubled and disadvantaged boys divert their energies into proper channels. Rochester would, Jensen realized, benefit greatly from having a PAL.
By 1948, Jensen’s campaign had succeeded. Local officials and business leaders agreed to fund a youth center and athletic programs under the auspices of the Police Youth Bureau. An abandoned building in Edgerton Park was refurbished to host dances for teenagers. Still, Jensen and fellow officers, such as Clarence “Jerry” DePrez and Henry Smith, thought more could be done.
Trains in the basement
Two factors prompted Jensen to turn his attention to model railroading in 1949 despite having no familiarity with it. First, he attended a class at the FBI Academy in Washington, D.C., that incorporated models and landscaped plots to solve problems in apprehending criminals. Second, he realized the lower floor of the new dance hall in Edgerton Park was empty.
Why not, Jensen asked himself, add a large miniature railroad to the list of facilities and activities the new Police Athletic League was supervising? Unsure of how to proceed, he wisely spoke with officers and members of O gauge and HO scale clubs. One person in particular, Adrian Buyse, advocated using only the larger and more durable (“destruction-resistant,” he called them) Lionel models.
Buyse sold Jensen on the idea, and he in turn requested plans for a large three-rail display. While Buyse was diagramming scenes and a network of track, Jensen and Smith were conferring with key manufacturers in Rochester in hopes of securing financial support. They liked the idea and established an advisory committee to garner more funds and volunteers. In addition, they recommended the persuasive Jensen communicate with executives at Lionel to gain assistance.
Help from Lionel
Like a scene from a Frank Capra movie of the time, Jensen managed to convince the men at the helm of the most prominent toy company in the country to schedule a meeting with him. Yes, Chairman of the Board Joshua Cowen and Executive Vice-President Arthur Raphael invited a humble public servant from upstate New York to lay out his vision for an immense three-rail display.
Cowen and Raphael listened, more than a bit surprised at the grand scale of Jensen’s plan. They mentally calculated the costs of all the track, locomotives, rolling stock, and accessories he desired. Keep in mind that Lionel’s leadership had only recently spent several thousand dollars building an O gauge layout in the corporate showroom. Months later, an outsider was asking for a major donation.
Perhaps the elderly Cowen was feeling especially generous or the clever Raphael recognized an opportunity for great publicity. Whatever the reason, the two, impressed by Jensen’s sincerity and public spirit, agreed to offer help.
In the end, according to Ed Van Leer, a model railroader then living in Rochester who participated in the construction of Model Railroad Heaven, Lionel donated about $5,000 worth of equipment. That amounted to 10% of the total cost of the project. The trip to New York City obviously had paid off.
Observation entrance
Adequate funding and skilled crews enabled work to begin in the opening weeks of 1950. Emphasis went initially on constructing and wiring the overall environment. The room housing the layouts was intended to be unique.
Planners meant to replicate an observation car on the New York Central’s Empire State Express, which routinely passed through Rochester. They contacted shops of the Merchants Despatch Transportation Corp., a subsidiary of the railroad that provided refrigerator car service. Crews there collaborated with some carpenters sent by the city to construct the façade and then wire all the lights.
At the same time, other municipal carpenters, as well as some O and HO model railroaders, were in the basement hammering and nailing together the benchwork for the interconnected layouts. Next, those volunteers laid the straight and curved sections of track and installed and wired switches. Testing went on repeatedly.
Local settings
An entirely different sort of assistance came from the management of the two biggest department stores in downtown Rochester. McCurdy’s and Sibley’s employed artists and electricians to assemble displays for their windows. With the holiday season over, those artisans had free time and so were soon dispatched to Edgerton Park to join members of the Rochester Art Club in painting backdrops.
Department store personnel also assisted the hobbyists who had started on landscaping. By that point early in the spring, everyone agreed the layouts were going to represent four different settings observed at various seasons.
The overarching theme of four separate yet linked model railroads evolved from the original plan outlined by Buyse. As the late physician recollected in the June 1991 issue of Classic Toy Trains, he had advised the PAL to set “the railroad in the Genesee River Valley extending southward from the Rochester harbor on Lake Ontario to the headwaters at the New York-Pennsylvania boundary.”
Modifying Buyse’s idea to include seasonal sights and changes made the dioramas more entertaining while giving each a unique identity. Many decades later, viewers still connect each layout to a particular area and season.
More help from Lionel
Besides contributing money and shipping boxes of track and trains to the Police Athletic League, Lionel’s chiefs offered help in another form around the time winter yielded to spring in 1950. They informed Jensen, who was immersed in the process of building scenery, that a trio of outstanding craftsmen was on the way.
Even before Steve Paganuzzi, William Vollheim, and Arthur Zirul were riding to the rescue, a fourth colleague was sketching potential plans for the four layouts.
Robert Sherman, like his three comrades, was only nominally tied to Lionel. In actuality, all four men worked for Diorama Studios, a tiny firm affiliated with an advertising agency doing a host of assignments for Lionel.
When the electric train manufacturer needed a modeled scene built and photographed for a promotional brochure or an operating layout created for a TV program, people called on the individuals at Diorama to get the job done well and on time. The quartet completed dozens of assignments large and small for Lionel.
A little more than a year earlier, when top officials at Lionel had felt the need to build a brand-new O gauge layout as the centerpiece of the main office, they had called on Diorama Studios to handle the task. The result had been a 16 x 32-foot, two-tiered three-rail exhibit that satisfied everyone and shaped a generation.
With the demands on their time declining, at least temporarily, the hard-working crew from Diorama Studios could easily be sent to Rochester to assist with wiring the four displays, especially their accessories, and planning and finalizing the range of superb scenic effects.
Vollheim and Zirul had reminisced about sharing everything they knew about landscaping materials and techniques. They offered their assorted secrets to volunteers from Eastman, Kodak; the Rotary Club; and the Police Department. In particular, Zirul instructed some of the officers in how to form mountains and hills using a material known as Celastic, which resembles cheesecloth or burlap.
Carefully soaking the Celastic in acetone and then draping it over wood forms until it hardened created the peaks painted and covered with artificial snow for the winter section. The same process worked for rolling hills in the spring one.
In the blink of an eye, individuals who had never modeled any sort of landscapes became experts. They appreciated the generous help given by the three men from Diorama Studios, help that enhanced the creation of the four independent layouts and sped up completion.
Rochester in summer
Buyse’s view that the layouts should faithfully capture the topography of western New York never won too many advocates. Captain Jensen and other volunteers wanted a more fanciful and imaginative appearance to appeal to kids. Bob Sherman delivered independent dioramas that balanced realism and fun.
Still, the summer layout did model a specific area very impressively. The painters in charge of the backdrop depicted the skyline of their municipality. Their civic pride was reflected in enduring portraits of sights, such as St. Joseph’s Church, the Kodak Tower, and the University of Rochester’s library.
Demonstrating loyalty to the city was the scenery made for the same diorama. The port on Lake Ontario was modeled. Zirul himself contributed an enormous cargo ship on its way to a dock to unload shipments. That excellent model is still there.
The spring and autumn layouts tended to feature more generic landscapes, though they were reminiscent of what residents glimpsed in neighboring counties. Their valleys and forests suggested rural areas to the south and west of Rochester.
More specifically, the spring diorama included crops being planted and cattle being transported to market. The fall layout had hills along a river gorge.
Finally, the snow-capped mountains of the winter diorama seemed to be more of what could be seen on the set of a motion picture studio’s back lot than in the Adirondack range farther east or the hills near the Finger Lakes to the south.
Enhancing the beauty of the towering and dramatic peaks was a star-filled sky. Jerry DePrez created the sparkling sky with fluorescent paint and black light.
Accessories galore
The sophisticated landscapes, elaborate visual effects (a black-and-white television served as a drive-in movie theater), and stunning backdrops left the impression that Model Railroad Heaven was intended for adult scale model enthusiasts. There was a fair degree of truth to that perspective. All four of the displays showcased the finest modeling techniques and approaches known at the early postwar era.
At the same time, the layouts were aimed at youngsters eager to have fun running Lionel trains and accessories. Need proof? Each of the dioramas featured some of the most exciting freight loaders and operating cars Lionel cataloged.
Wander over to the spring diorama and you’d notice the platform for the no. 3472 automatic refrigerated milk car and the corral used with the no. 3656 operating stockcar. The winter layout, meanwhile, featured the nos. 97 coal elevator and 164 log loader. The summer display relied on a no. 115 city station and two no. 313 operating bascule bridges to complete the monumental harbor.
Scattered throughout were the familiar Lionel trackside accessories favored by youngsters just about everywhere. The assorted photographs of the display showed semaphores, crossing gates, highway flashers, block signals, automatic gatemen, and many more of those items.
Greetings from the governor
Construction proceeded rapidly over the rest of the spring and through the summer of 1950. The three men from Diorama Studios drove back to New York City, leaving the volunteers in Rochester to finish all the scenery, wiring, and testing.
While police members and model railroader toiled, Capt. Jensen looked ahead to planning a meaningful opening ceremony for Model Railroad Heaven. Always willing to go above and beyond what was expected, he dared to send an invitation to the governor’s mansion in Albany. Thomas Dewey, who had already served as Republican nominee for the U.S. Presidency, gladly accepted.
The festivities took place on October 27, 1950. Governor Dewey tapped home a tiny golden spike to officially complete the project. Jerry DePrez stood next to him, saying with a laugh that Dewey was “very pleasant” and “very short.”
Rochester’s daily newspapers gave the opening ceremony space on their front pages. Boys from throughout the city read about Model Railroad Heaven and soon made it their destination. The PAL was thrilled and awaited their arrival.
Time for fun
Captain Jensen selected Jerry DePrez and Bob Schwind to supervise the layout and guide youngsters in how to operate the trains and accessories. The two police officers also made sure the temptation to race the trains didn’t cause collisions or wrecks. They knew that “boys will be boys” when electric trains were involved.
During the scheduled operating sessions, Jerry and Bob divided the boys into groups of 16 and assigned them to one of the four layouts. They mentioned that the controls had been wired independently, so each youngster would be able to handle a different function, say a particular accessory or one of the trains.
Kids shifted jobs fairly quickly, so no one grew bored or missed a chance to be at the throttle of a long train. Once everyone in a group had finished his or her turn at the controls, the officers ushered them to the next diorama. By the end of each day, the youngsters were familiar with everything the layouts had to offer.
The opportunities for enjoying the new display seemed endless, and kids from every part of the city and all economic levels and social backgrounds came to the front door of the Edgerton Community Center. None of them was denied.
The premise of opening up the landmark O gauge exhibit to the entire community pleased advertising and marketing personnel at Lionel. They realized Model Railroad Heaven should be publicized to introduce boys and girls to the wonders and pleasures of the hobby. How the displays had been designed and built and then all the fun kids were having would inform and inspire others.
Therefore, when Lionel collaborated with Bantam Books to produce an introductory paperback volume titled Model Railroading in 1950, executives decided the layouts in Rochester deserved to be mentioned prominently. The displays would show readers, regardless of their experience in the hobby, what they could do.
Steve Paganuzzi from Diorama Studios took charge of writing the book. He publicized Model Railroad Heaven in Chapter 19: “Model Railroading as a Civil Project.” The section in Model Railroading, which featured a good number of photos of the display in Rochester, taught kids how to plan their own layout. Thousands of Lionel railroaders living far from western New York discovered the four spectacular dioramas and aimed to emulate what the PAL there had achieved.
Never-ending joy
More trains and more boys showed up at the community center as the 1950s wore on. The accompanying black-and-white photos revealed Lionel locomotives and rolling stock introduced in the years after the four layouts were completed. Whether the company donated additional sets or volunteers bought them wasn’t made clear. But the roster plainly was expanded and updated.
Also uncertain is how many boys participated in the operating sessions or even became model railroaders themselves. But the smiles on their faces in the vintage pictures leaves no doubt a generation of children in Rochester and its surrounding areas learned the many pleasures of the hobby while getting to know and trust the fathers and brothers then serving in the city’s police department.
Model Railroad Heaven demonstrated how miniature electric trains could be used by an older generation to teach, inspire, and guide a younger one. That was the primary goal established by Capt. Jensen and supported by different executives at Lionel. In spite of their different roles, they were all men believing in boys.
How fortunate the four layouts have survived, albeit with modifications to the scenery and improvements in the trackwork and electronics. They stand as monuments to both to Lionel and its craftsmen and to the significant role electric trains played in shaping the generation of kids coming of age in postwar times.
