Coming Soon!

We will have new member T-shirts to show off at this year's Train Show. Also, we are welcoming back Wade Hoagland with his G Scale. If you want to see our interview with David Dye and Tanner Mondok from the Sharon Herald, click here. We had the S Scale as a new layout at our train show this year.

This year, we have a new banner to replace the one that we always put up in November to promote our train show. This banner is in full color and will last longer!

It would be my first time showing off my new company's custom light-up sign with my train layout. Also, this will be our last time with our good, dear friend Levi Bowser at this train show. Showing off George Dell's artwork, and many people could not believe he had that kind of attention to detail. Selling artwork on canvas and long with a train set. Selling drink coasters. Once again, Tim Shultz setting up his big N scale layout.

We will hold an open enrollment at our train show to recruit new members for our train society. We need new, younger people to help us run our train show and help us with new projects. We will post this in our local newspaper.

The Buhl Recreation Center will offer food and drinks on both days of our train show in December. Food and drink are not permitted in the gym. We will have more information as it becomes available.

This year we will have at our welcome table a display of George Dell's artwork. For your viewing pleasure. If you want to know more about George Dell, go to our menu at the top, click on the Community Area, and you will see his about page.

We are very excited this year to have our Holiday Train Show! We can't wait to see our friends and our community!

The Buhl Recreation Center will be offering food and drinks on both days at our train show in December. Food and drink are not permitted in the gym. We will have more information as it becomes available.

This year we will have at our welcome table a display of George Dell's artwork. For your viewing pleasure. If you want to know more about George Dell, go to our menu at the top, click on the Community Area, and you will see his about page.

This year has been a roller costar with covid-19 taking over the world. There are a lot of things canceled that many people enjoy and do every year. This year has been a test on our lives but brought us closer together. There is no train show this year and we as a train society will miss our friends and our community.

We are happy to once again be hosting our Holiday Train Show this year in December. This year we are going to have vendors selling trains and accessories. If you like our displays and you want to get into the hobby. Take a look at what we have to offer for sale.

The Buhl Recreation Center will be offering food and drinks on both days of our train show in December. Food and drink are not permitted in the gym. We will have more information as it becomes available.

This year we will have at our welcome table a display of George Dell's artwork. For your viewing pleasure. If you want to know more about George Dell, go to our menu at the top, click on the Community Area, and you will see his about page.

January 31, 2018: Online Store
I would like to let you know that have partnered with Cafepress to sale our products to you. I know in the past we only had calendars and T-shirts with only limited sizes, but now there is more to choose from. You can go to our website and click on the shopping bag on the main page.

February 15, 2018: Online December booking of train show
This new booking form will save time and money. No one has to mail the form and the money in. We are using PayPal to process payments. This will help us run the Train Show a lot more smoothly, but if you want to do it the old way, you can. The train show form can still be downloaded here on our site in our downloads area.

October 11, 2018: Brookfield Historical Society
Ken Rogers and I were happy to be invited to one of the Brookfield Historical Society meetings this evening. To be able to show off George Dell’s artwork to the community and to talk about the legacy that he left behind. We are also happy to announce our new partnership with the president of the Brookfield Historical Society as we donate one of George’s artworks to hang in the administration building in Brookfield, Ohio

November 3-4, 2018: Hermitage Historical Society
Photo will be posted soon.
The theme this year is Traditional Christmas.

December 15-16, 2018: Eleventh Annual Train Show
We also welcome back Tim Shultz, who was overseas fighting for our freedom this year. He is going to show off his N scale modular layout. Thanks to the Buhl Recreation Community Center for offering pizza, drinks, and snacks. We had a great time this year, and our vendors sold a lot of trains and accessories. They had a lot of different-sized model trains on display that filled up the gym.

November 11, 2017: Hermitage Historical Society
Contributed: Ken Rogers with his wife, Tom Rookie, Denny Gsell, Chuck Dugan, Ted Fiasher, and Jonathan Wichter. The Historical Society every year has their Victorian home filled with Christmas trees that are decorated in different ways, so we asked if we could decorate a Christmas tree that is model railroad themed.
December 9-10, 2017: Tenth Annual Train Show
Jonathan Wichter, president of the Buhl Model Train Society, watches as a model train chugs along the tracks at his home model train display. Members of the organization will have train set displays this weekend at the Buhl Community Recreation Center Gymnasium in Sharon. The event is free and open to the public.

More than 30 train buffs are expected to showcase their model train sets at the event, which begins this Friday at the Buhl Community Recreation Center.

“You’ll see lots of different model trains in terms of size and scenery,’’ said Jonathan Wichter, Buhl Model Train Society president.

But modern train sets have more going for them than just looks. Wichter’s own home set has a passenger train where the voice of a conductor barks out when the train arrives at a station.

Of course, the real work is creating the accompanying display around the track, Wichter said. Part of his layout includes painstaking details of a city with fast-food restaurants, banks and retailers.

“It took me more than a year to do this,’’ he said.

Like Wichter, many model rail hobbyists have permanent displays at their homes. These exhibits are delicate and too big to move. As a result, they create “on the road’’ displays, which can easily be transported.

This is a hobby where size really does count. Model train sets are sold based on size.

What has changed the hobby dramatically is the introduction of digital technology. Older sets with wires often meant gates in displays had to be moved manually.

“With digital sets, all you have to do is push a button,’’ Rookey said. “You can also easily turn a display from daytime to night with street and window lights coming on.”

A common question Rookey gets is how much model train sets cost. Just like General Motors cars, prices can vary from an entry-level Chevrolet all the way up to a fully loaded Cadillac.

“I bought a train set two years ago for around $80,’’ Rookey said. “And that included the locomotive, rails, the power unit, and six cars. And then my wife bought me two locomotives – just two locomotives – and paid $100 for the pair.’’

Today we met with the new director of Buhl Community Recreation Center in the Wilson Room. Along with the Sharon Herald newspaper taking photos. Dave Davis, Jonathan Wichter, Ken Rogers, and Tom Rookie. We showed the new director what goes into setting up the train show each year.

December 12-13, 2015: Eighth Annual Train Show
Contributed: Ken Rogers, Dave Davis, Chuck Dugan, and Jonathan Wichter worked on the Buhl Model Train Society’s modular layout for the 8th Annual Holiday Train Exhibit.

This year’s theme is “Kids, Let’s Put Trains Together.” The gymnasium will be filled with more and larger displays and operating layouts. The train society’s 10-by-16-foot modular layout will again be featured with Lionel trains in constant motion. Also returning this year is “What’s it Worth,” with owners of toy trains, old and not-so-old, invited to bring them to experienced train enthusiasts to find out their value.

Train society members will offer for sale Buhl Model Train Society T-shirts and George Dell pen-and-ink drawing prints of locomotives and other railroad scenes. Proceeds from the sales will go toward next year’s event. Door prizes will be waiting for several lucky people.

Each year, the model train society fills the gymnasium with model train layouts brought in by community members. More than 1,000 people are expected to visit the displays.

May 16, 2014: Community Food Warehouse
We have donated money to the Community Food Warehouse of Mercer County.

August 14, 2014: Our new website opened!

With our new website, we are able to keep people informed about upcoming train shows. You can see our new photo gallery of past train shows and other layouts. See news about us and our town on our front page. Listen to podcasts from the Round House and view live train feeds from Virtual Train Fan. Also hear live train crew talk in our Train feeds area from the USA and Canada. Look at catalogs online from model train companies. There are so many other things to see here.

As one of 15 members of the Buhl Model Train Society, Shannon and other members of the group are all on board for the 7th Annual Holiday Train Show at the Buhl Community Recreation Center in Sharon this weekend.

The center’s gym should be nearly full with model trains and other similar displays, Shannon said, including a display from the Shenango Valley Model Railroad Club.

“On display will be model trains of all scales,’’ the South Pymatuning Township resident said. “And there will be other things there related to railroads.’’

Scheduled to run 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, the event is free to the public.

“It’s mostly going to be people who want to show off their trains,’’ Shannon said.

There’s actually more to this hobby than just the trains. Enthusiasts of model trains – don’t dare call them toy trains – are known to take months, even years, to create landscapes and scenery that go with the displays.

The Train Society has a group effort that will be on display, for which each member, or a small group of them, worked on a modular section. Each section can be disassembled and then reconstructed for shows.

In the Train Society’s case, there are different scenes with the modular sections. One section has a dirt race track with midget racers, while the next scene has an industrial complex with a coal loader followed by a section with an airport theme. Members worked on a large section located in Shannon’s garage, but he will also have his own personal display at the show.

Both of these displays feature trains which are O-gauge.

For those who aren’t model train buffs, the gauge of each model is the distance between the running rails of the track. The scale of the model is the ratio of size between the model and an actual full-size train. A scale model railway may have several track gauges in one scale.

In model railroading, the most popular gauges are HO and O. Most O-gauge models are 1:48 scale while HO-gauge runs about half the size at 1:87 scale.

For a time HO was king of model trains, but O has made a strong comeback, said Dave Davis, founder of the Train Society.

“Everything is now all computerized for O-gauge, and there are more accessories for them,’’ Davis said.

A Sharon resident, Davis retired as a United Methodist pastor; his last church was Wheatland-Farrell United Methodist Church in Wheatland. When working as a preacher, Christmas was a busy time for him, which didn’t allow for many diversions.

Deciding to pick up on his childhood hobby, he got a G-gauge model train – a true giant which runs at 1:32 scale. He ran out of room at his home, so his wife, a pre-school teacher at Buhl Rec Center, said he should try setting it up at the Sharon club for others to see.

“Others into model railroading saw it and wanted to bring theirs to the club,’’ Davis said. “That was the start of the first train show.’’

Both men hope to entice others into the hobby. Top-tier displays filled with all kinds of gadgets can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars. But the typical novice entering the hobby can fetch a train with layout in the $300 to $350 range.

“This is a hobby that has it all – carpentry, electrical work, painting and construction, just to name a few,’’ Shannon said. “We need to get those young people away from those Game Boys.’’

Nine-year-old Alexander Holmes of Grove City stole the show at Buhl Model Train Society’s sixth annual display.
The crowd around Alex’s enormous Thomas the Tank Engine set-up in the middle of the Buhl Community Recreation Center gymnasium proved to be a popular attraction.
The Rev. David Davis, organizer and past president of the train society, said most of the people showing off their sets at the 30-exhibit show learned electrical skills setting up their train sets as kids, like Alex.

“He knows as much about trains as we do,” said Davis, of Mercer. “He’s passionate about it.”
Alex sat by his collection wearing his conductor hat bought at the Oil Creek-Titusville Railroad in Titusville.
He could be seen at times darting around his tables sharing his know-how of trains with passersby.
He talked about his trains with the confidence of a seasoned collector. He said with equal confidence that he would like to be a train conductor or airplane pilot when he grows up.
It was Alex’s second year in the model train show.

“The way I started in this show is a long story,” Alex said, explaining that he met Davis at the elementary school he attends with Davis’ granddaughter.
“He saw my extravagant display at our hobby show and sent me a letter to come to this show last year,” Alex said. “Then he invited me again this year.”
Alex got interested in model train sets way back at the age of 2. “I used to call them chug-a-chugs,” he said.

Alex’s dad Michael said his son “got hooked” on collecting trains the first time the family went to the live steam engine show with Thomas the Tank Engine in Stroudsburg, Pa.
“He gets them for birthdays and Christmas,” Holmes said. “And when he’s good.”
Alex went into the intricacies of his collection and talked about the Thomas the Tank Engine line of trains and the television shows.
“I like the show from the 1990s and the old train sets,” he said.

When asked if he had every car in the set, he came back with an immediate “no,” but said he has big plans for his continuing collection.
“I want to get the real Thomas engines next,” Alex said.
The “real” Thomas engines are O-gauge models, each with a price tag of $700 or more.
The O-scale model trains are about three times the size of the children’s Thomas the Tank Engine cars.

The larger models were the most popular and featured in a lot of the other displays at the weekend show.
Davis said the Buhl Train Society formed after his wife asked him to take his trains to show to preschoolers at Buhl Recreation Center.

The first year saw about 750 people pass through the displays. In years following, about 1,100 people come in to see the intricate train sets.
In addition to the train sets people have collected over the years, most are running their original train sets that are 50 to 60 years old, Davis said.
“We’re here mainly to provide nice, family fun for the area,” Davis said. “I think it sparks a lot of interest in the community.”

March 24, 2012: George Dell. One of our members has passed away: George Dell, a local artist, Dear Friend, and longtime member.
November 17, 2012: Annual Hermitage Holiday Light Parade
Bob Shannon - Has put together a parade float. In preparation for the 15th Annual Hermitage Holiday Light Parade.
December 8-9, 2012: Fifth Annual Train Show
Here is a wooden steam locomotive cutout with a railroad crossing.

Dec 18, 2009: George Dell
A few years ago, George Dell’s daughter took him for a ride on an excursion train.

Dell, of Brookfield, remembered the ride as a couple of miles out, then back, at a top speed of 8 mph. His daughter asked him if the ride was fun.

“Oh, yeah,” Dell recalled his response, the words dripping with sarcasm.

Dell, who will be honored at the Buhl Holiday Train Show Saturday and Sunday at the Buhl Community Recreation Center, Sharon, spent nine years riding the rails in the ’30s and ’40s. From his perch in an open, speeding box car, he watched the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, the dry scrub of Texas and the forests of the Northeast whiz by. An excursion train ride just does not compare.

Now 93, Dell fondly recalls his years as a hobo.

Born in Hollidaysburg, Pa., Dell was the son of a fireman on the Pennsylvania Railroad. His father took him to the station one day when he was a boy, and he saw the PRR’s steam engine known as K-4.

“Power. Excitement,” Dell said of what trains have meant to him since that day.

He started drawing the impressive engine, and a lifelong hobby of drawing trains — and planes, boats and many other subjects — was born.

The Depression hit when Dell was in his teens, and his family stood in a soup line, as many others did for food.

The soup was doled out according to the size of the family.

“I figured, if I got out, it would be more for them,” he said.

So, at 17, Dell hopped his first freight.

“Arizona to Maine. Montana to Texas,” he said of the country he traveled.

Dell always carried a lunch box with him because it made him look like a railroad employee. He could walk right past the railroad police and board a train without anyone stopping him, he said.

Oh sure, he got thrown off his share, but he was never arrested. He was one of many who traveled by rail — without tickets — at that time.

“You can’t arrest them all,” he said, noting some trains carried 200 freeloaders.

Dell recalled stopping in one town where there were probably 50 hobos but only 10 houses.

He figured there was no way he would find anything to eat and planned to keep going to the next town, but a fellow hobo knew better.

The hobo convinced Dell to come with him, and knocked on a door.

“A woman came to the door, about 75,” Dell said. “He said, ‘Morning, ma’am, is your mother home?’ She set us down and gave us something to eat.”

“Psychology,” is how Dell phrased his friend’s trickery.

“You’ll do anything to eat,” he said.

Although the country had hit hard times, Dell said work came easy.

“Every time I came to a town, someone asked, ‘What kind of work do you do?’ You could always find a job.”

He worked for anywhere from $1 to $9 a day.

“Name it and I done it,” he said of jobs. He worked in diners, dug graves, plowed fields by horse and tractor, drove trucks and unloaded train cars. He particularly enjoyed farm work.

“Three meals and a place to stay,” he said, referring to the barn.

On a good day, farm work simply was enjoyable, he said.

“Barefoot, walking behind the plow on a hot day, soft ground. It felt good,” said Dell, who has been married three times and has two children and two grandchildren. “The robins would follow and eat the worms.”

The change to a more traditional way of life came on the spur of a moment.

“Sitting by a water tank, I thought, ‘Am I going to do this the rest of my life?’ I jumped an eastbound and headed home.”

He took a job at a feed mill in Wilmington, Del., later working with Pittsburgh Plate Glass in Newark, N.J., a Ralston Purina plant, and his own home repair business in Georgetown, Texas.

Dell can’t remember all the places he worked, including where he was employed when he moved to the Shenango Valley to marry his second wife, Jessie Heckathorn, whom he met in Texas.

These days, Dell keeps close to trains by drawing them.

He’ll recreate scenes from his hobo days, copy scenes from photographs and make up his own compositions.

He still draws the K-4 that made a strong impression on him all those years ago, and has detailed a steamer coming across the bridge on Water Avenue in Sharon.

An usher at First United Methodist Church, Sharon, Dell showed a drawing of three children sitting on a station platform seeing an engine for the first time.

A Civil War veteran stands in the background.

“People like it because of the flag,” he said of the American flag partially wrapped around a pole.

The three children in another drawing walking up to a track as a train bears down are in no danger, he said.

“The train is going so slow,” Dell said.

December 19-20, 2009: Second Annual Train Show

Dave Davis and Ken Rogers went to the Director of the Buhl Recreation Center to ask if they could put on a train show in their GYM in December due to the fact that they had outgrown the upstairs. It was the start of a partnership with the Buhl Recreation Center. It also helped to bring people into the center and help them to potentially get people to sign up to be members of the facility.

Organizers say the second-annual Buhl Holiday Train show will be twice the size of last year's successful event.

David Davis, president of the Buhl Model Train Society, said he heads a group of enthusiasts who grew up with toy trains at Christmas time, and their desire is to pass some of that enthusiasm on to kids today.

This year's show will feature more than 50 operating model and toy trains, railroad memorabilia, and a display of train pen-and-ink drawings and door prizes. The Buhl Model Train Society will be honoring George Dell, a local artist, who does pen-and-ink drawings of railroad-related scenes. The 93-year-old was once a hobo, traveling around the country on freight trains.

New this year is a children's story hour where kids can listen to The Polar Express presented by Milton Wilson, children's librarian at the Community Library of the Shenango Valley in Sharon.

Visitors will also be able to meet retired locomotive engineer John Takoch and retired train conductor Robert Downing, and hear about life on the rails as told from their experience working on the railroad.

Bluegrass music will also be featured at this year's event. At 5 p.m. Saturday, the banjo duo of Jim Helmetzi and Fred Theisk will be on tap. At 1 p.m. Sunday, the Dempseytown Ramblers will be on hand.

Sean McGill made good use of two of his 10 model train sets on Saturday by setting them up in the gym of the Buhl Community Recreation Center in Sharon for dozens of people to see.

The occasion was the second annual Buhl Holiday Train Show organized by the Buhl Model Train Society.

Sean’s mother, Kelly McGill, said he has been getting a model train set for Christmas every year since he was born.

“I really like trains,” the 11-year-old said.

Sean’s favorite is the ‘Polar Express,’ a set named after a popular children’s book and movie of the same name, which has a holiday theme.

Both of his displays were set up in circles. The McGills had planned on a more creative layout but found that the club didn’t have enough space for that.

“Normally we have to set these up in the basement,” Mrs. McGill said.

On the other side of the gym, 4-year-old Blake Creed of Masury watched intently as two trains, set up on circular tracks one inside the other, went opposite ways around the tracks.

“His father just went to Afghanistan,” said Jack Creed, Blake’s grandfather. “We’re just trying to keep him and his mother busy.”

One of the more popular displays included several different Fisher-Price train sets that children were able to operate by remote control.

“I set this up for the kids,” said Jennifer Perry, a member of the train society from Sharon.

Mrs. Perry said that she has five kids, for whom she often buys model trains. Her sister, she said, also has several kids, and she also buys them model train sets.

“Between me and my sister, we got enough pieces to put this together,” Mrs. Perry said.

There were about 50 train sets on display Saturday, as well as some model train memorabilia such as a miniature steam engine.

“A lot of us got these when we were little kids, and we don’t have a chance to set them up very often,” said David Davis, society president.

It was such a big hit for the kids, so Dave decided to have him and his friends set up their train layouts on the third floor of the recreation center. The kids and their parents came to see the many model trains. As time went on, the popularity of showing the model trains had grown to the point that Dave and his friends had to think of a bigger place to show off their layouts.

The start of the love of Model Trains:
The Buhl Model Train Society was started at the Buhl Club Nursery School by Carol Davis, Director, on or about mid-November 2008.

The children were going to study and play with “Thomas the Train” when Mrs. Davis thought of some real model trains that could possibly be brought in. Her husband, Dave Davis, had trains, and a few of us also had electric trains. Within a month’s time, the first show was put on up on the 3rd floor, with 15 displays brought in by other train lovers. The first show drew over 600 people, and we soon outgrew the 3rd floor.