Saturday, April 6, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
When the big, outdoor model trains came out in the 1960s, Chuck McManis was impressed.
But as an Air Force officer stationed in Brussels who was raising four children at the time, McManis did not have the extra money to invest in such adult toys.
"When I retired from the Air Force, and the kids moved out, there was my disposable income for buying trains," said McManis, 63, president of the Las Vegas Garden Railway Society, the defending champion of the Great American Train Show, which returns to Las Vegas Saturday and April 14.
McManis' collection of G-scale model trains -- the largest of 25 hobby-size sets -- is valued in the thousands of dollars. But to him it is more than an investment. It is a means of passing time on a warm summer evening, sitting at poolside, watching the trains chug along a track that winds around his back yard.
Still, he and his companions take the hobby seriously enough to be working hard at repeating as champions at the fifth annual event, which runs daily from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. at Cashman Field Center. Tickets for the nation's largest traveling model train show are $5 per person, with children under 12 admitted free.
"We really do this just for fun," said McManis, a longtime Las Vegas photographer. "But it was nice to win for the first time last year."
The victory followed a second-place finish in 1993 -- the club's first year of setting up a display at the show -- and a third-place finish in 1994.
McManis, who received his first Lionel-brand train when he was a child, said he believes the reason model trains have been popular for so long is they move like the real trains.
"There has always been a romanticism for trains," McManis said. "There have been many movies and hundreds of books written about trains, and, of course, there's the Christmas tradition of the model train going around the tree."
In recent years, he said, there have been restorations of old trains such as the Georgetown Loop and Durango-Silverton run, both in Colorado. Some collectors even assemble their models to re-create many famous railroad lines.
Ardel Henrichsen, 62, vice president of the local club, says the nostalgic appeal of the old trains is reflected in the mechanical features of the models -- from the lonesome whistle to the steam puffing from the smoke stack.
"The clickity-clack, the rhythmic movement of the rods -- all of this fascinates children and many adults," said Henrichsen, who designed last year's U-shaped track layout that earned his club first-place honors.
Again in charge of design, Henrichsen said one of the new features he hopes will impress the judges is a four-foot-long covered bridge into which the train will disappear.
Pat McManis, Chuck's wife and the club secretary, said model train collecting can bring families closer together.
"We have about 25 families in our club, and each month we bring our trains to a different member's home and run them," said Pat, 61.
As a child, she was fascinated by her uncle's model trains, but was discouraged from playing with them because it was not considered a "girl's hobby" back then.
Today, she said, many of the wives are actively involved in the club, and have made the monthly gatherings a complete social event by preparing pot-luck buffets. The club's members range from age 5 to 76.
But the Las Vegas Garden Railway Society is not the only train group in town.
The Las Vegas Valley Model Railroad Club has about a dozen members who operate HO-scale trains -- by far the industry's most popular size.
"They are small, but they are large enough so that you can see the detail, and they are heavy enough to stay on the track," said Paul Mickelson, the 51-year-old club president.
"You can make a pretty nice layout on just a 2-foot-by-8-foot piece of plywood."
His club also has done well at the Las Vegas stop of the Great American Train Show, finishing second in 1992 and last year, and first in 1993 and '94.
Mickelson said these shows are a great opportunity for people to begin collecting model trains.
"You can see what is available in the booths and you can go to the people displaying the trains and learn a lot before you buy," he said. "I buy supplies at several of these shows (in Nevada and California) each year."
However, Mickelson warns that as with any hobby show, there are good quality and poor quality products offered for sale. He recommends that before people buy, they determine what scale train they enjoy the most.
Dave Swanson, spokesman for the show, which has its main office in Chicago, has long collected N-scale trains, far smaller than the Gs and HOs.
"I like them because they don't take up a lot of room," he said, noting that potential hobbyists next weekend will be able to compare the various scale models in one room before buying, and that more than 10,000 trains will be offered for sale.
Swanson said about 5,000 people from Nevada, Utah and Arizona are expected to attend the event that will feature 10 operating model railroads, 350 booths and 40 workshops.
One workshop will feature a man who builds tiny workable trains -- the boxcars are a half-inch long.
Another workshop will teach hobbyists how to make their trains look more realistic by allowing rust to set in on the wheels and by applying paint on cars to resemble spray-can graffiti, Swanson said.
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