Georgia Magazine - August 2018 - 26

signaling. He's developed a chip to control crossing gates,
with blinking lights and sound. At home, his layout fills
his two-car garage and has five cities and 50 to 60 buildings. It runs by a computer-assisted program.

SALLY BANDO

High-tech on the track

JIM DATKA

Sally and James Bando of Woodstock built their outdoor layout
around a former swimming pool that they drained.

Alan Mole's Mole Valley Railroad layout is featured in the Piedmont
Division's second-quarter issue of the Timetable newsletter; check it
out at bit.ly/18timetableq2.

the town of Tifton, and it gives our club a place to meet,"
says Tait, whose specialty is custom painting and decaling
of locomotives.
"Someone else is good with installing lights, laying
track or scratch-building structures. When we get together, our skills complement each other," he says.
The Golden Isles Model Railroad Club meets in the
refurbished Seaboard Air Line (SAL) Railroad depot in
Kingsland, but most of the 15 members drive 40 to 50
miles to get there, says the club's president, Don Perla of
Waycross.
"The group had been in Brunswick for almost 35
years, but the old club building got destroyed by Hurricane Matthew" in 2016, Perla says. "We're building an HO
model of the old SAL line from Savannah to Jacksonville
[Fla.]. The time period is the 1950s, the transition from late
steam to early diesel engines."
Perla is an electronics expert and does the wiring and
26

Model railroading has gone high-tech. Digital Command Control (introduced in the 1990s) allows model
railroaders to run multiple trains and more realistic situations with sound on the same track simultaneously, says
Bill Attaway, head of the Middle Georgia Model Railroad
Club in Warner Robins and superintendent of the Empire
Division of the SER-NMRA. There are now phone apps
for running trains, and scenery materials are more realistic
and available online in multiple sizes.
The Middle Georgia Model Railroad Club is a modular club. About 30 members have built 40 tabletop modules for an HO layout, which can be assembled together
for exhibits. Their annual Thanksgiving weekend display
at the Museum of Aviation draws huge crowds.
"[Model railroading is] so educational, especially for
kids. They learn about math and proportion, electrical
circuits, electronics, building, topography, industry and
history," says Attaway, who has been a model railroader
since he was 5. "It teaches you how to figure things out,
and then you get to run the trains."
Howard Goodwin, board member for the Piedmont
Division, helped start the Boy Scout Railroading Merit
Badge Program in 2003. It's one of the outreach programs
to attract new interest in the hobby.
"We give one-day workshops four times a year and
have put more than 1,200 Scouts through the program,"
says Goodwin, who got his first Lionel train set at age 6.
He likes creating HO-scale scenes from the 1940s to the
1970s and owns 100 locomotives and about 200 cars.
Goodwin went through the NMRA Achievement Program to become a Master Model Railroader and now gives
back to the hobby by teaching others.
"Clubs are about encouraging modeling skills and
mentoring. There are so many aspects to this hobby, and
I like everything about it," he says.
Freelance writer Laura Raines lives in Mableton.

Model railroading resources
Empire Division, SER-NMRA, empiredivision-ser.org
Georgia Garden Railway Society, bit.ly/ggrsociety
Golden Isles Model Railroad Club, gimrrc.com
Middle Georgia Model Railroad Club, mgmrc.org
National Model Railroad Association, nmra.org
Piedmont Division, SER-NMRA, piedmont-div.org
South Georgia Model Railroad Club, bit.ly/sgmrc
Southeastern Region, NMRA, ser-nmra.org
The SouthErneR, spring 2018 publication of SER-NMRA,
bit.ly/spring18south
Tri-State Model Railroaders, Mineral Bluff, tsmri.org
World's Greatest Hobby, guide to model trains, wgh.trains.com

More online at www.georgiamagazine.org

GEORGIA MAGAZINE

http://www.bit.ly/18timetableq2 http://www.empiredivision-ser.org http://www.bit.ly/ggrsociety http://www.gimrrc.com http://www.mgmrc.org http://www.nmra.org http://www.piedmont-div.org http://www.bit.ly/sgmrc http://www.ser-nmra.org http://www.bit.ly/spring18south http://www.tsmri.org http://wgh.trains.com http://www.georgiamagazine.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - August 2018