By Marty Crisp
Sunday News
December 23, 2007

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - “When I was a kid on Christmas morning, I’d see the depressing assortment of gifts the adults got — shirts, socks, ties,” said Strasburg Rail Road President Linn Moedinger.

“And I’d think, if that’s what it’s like to grow up, I don’t want to.”

Moedinger, 56, is happy to still get toys for Christmas, specifically model trains. Across the driveway from his home in West Lampeter Township, the rail enthusiast has a 2,000-square-foot building with 11-foot-high ceilings, totally dedicated to his own train complex.

There are “pop-up” holes for the operator hidden throughout the three-level layout, but a visitor can wander along the twisting path that winds through two rooms, walking under bridges, through mountain landscapes, and past 10 control boards for the hundreds of HOn3 (narrow gauge) railroad cars chugging through this miniature world.

Around one curve, there’s a trio of grizzly bears, while a herd of steers grazes around another. Tiny telegraph poles carry thread-thin lines. There’s even a real telegraph that allows the back room to Morse code messages to the front.

Moedinger got his first toy train when he was 6; it was a gift from his dad, who worked as a Lancaster-based conductor for Chicago’s Pullman Co. He also played with his father’s S-gauge American Flyer.”

“We don’t have trains under the tree anymore,” Moedinger said, glancing around the mostly Rocky Mountain landscape where he runs accurate replicas of the Rio Grande Southern (96.6 yards of track) and the East Broad Top (75 yards of track).

“Amtrak is a standard gauge railroad,” Moedinger explained. “Like the Strasburg Rail Road, it has standard width track: 4 feet, 8½ inches. I like narrow gauge railroads with 3-foot track, just because of its improbability. It hangs on the sides of mountains and clings to ledges above rivers where trains shouldn’t be able to go.”

Moedinger can run a dozen trains at a time (with help) on his layout. His train garden perpetually chugs through the year 1957, which was actually six years after the Rio Grande Southern shut down and one year after East Broad Top ceased freight operations.

“I’m a freelance modeler based on a prototype,” he explained. “I can use both accuracy and imagination.”

William and the late Marian Moedinger (William, 94, now lives at Willow Valley), Linn’s parents, were two of the 24 people who bought stock in the Strasburg Rail Road in 1958, after the previous owners filed for “abandonment.”

“My parents would be out there every weekend,” said Moedinger, who graduated from Lampeter-Strasburg High School in 1969. “It was a glorious place for a kid to play.”

Moedinger started working for the rebuilt Strasburg tourist railroad in 1968. By 1976, he was engine house foreman; by 1988, chief mechanical officer; and by 2000, he was president.

It was 1978 when Moedinger decided to combine his love of art, woodworking and electronics into one hobby: model railroading. “I try to run it like a real working railroad, with dispatch and tracking,” he said.

There are tunnels and trestle bridges, as well as through-truss, plate-girder, and deck-plate bridges. The rebuilt mostly-1960s-vintage model steam trains include engines, freight cars, cabooses, gondolas, hopper cars, flat cars, stock cars, tank cars, refrigerator cars, and maintenance-of-way equipment.

“Trains are living history, as well as the best way to travel,” said this husband and father of two. “I’m hoping to get some box cars for Christmas. Pretty soon, I’ll be laying more track and stringing more telegraph wire. Modeling railroad is a journey, not a destination. You’re never done.”