THE AMMONOOSUC VALLEY RAILWAY ASSOCIATION IS ON TRACK.
By Bernie Marvin
THE AMMONOOSUC VALLEY RAILWAY ASSOCIATION IS ON TRACK. CONDUCTOR GEORGE EKWALL SAYS, "WE ARE ALL ABOARD FOR A MODEL RAILROADING ADVENTURE!"
As I stood in the basement activity room beneath the attractive and historic St. Luke's Church in Woodsville, I could hear the muffled buzzing and a slight clickety-clack from some machine in operation. It wasn't an obnoxious noise filling the air, but a rather gentle sound as it buzzed along, creating its own ratchety cadence.
I opened a side door and stepped into a room nearly filled with a huge, flat model railroad layout, complete with buildings, tiny vehicles, landscaping, and lots of narrow-gauge locomotives, cars, and tracks.
This was a site I had not seen for many years, a scale model railroad layout complete with several small black HO gauge railroad vehicles, some lined up as if in an early Woodsville railyard such as the one that rested at one time long ago across Central Street where I was then standing.
It was there that one of the North Country's largest and busiest railheads was located about 200 yards to my east. The noises I could hear coming from the miniature train sets traveling around the tabletop course paled in comparison to the authentic old-time railroad activities and sounds that occurred every hour of every day along Woodsville's Central Street.
At the St. Luke's location, I met two model railroad operators, George Eckwall of Woodsville and his friend Jeff Fonda of Landaff. They were working on the model train layout, something that had been in operation at that location for about a year.
The rail action of the former days of their club, the Ammonoosuc Valley Railway Association (AVRA), they said, had been stilled by the intervening years since their last club appearance, which was this show held at the high school in Lincoln in 2016.
At that production held in the spacious gymnasium, hundreds of patrons and model railroad fans filed in to catch the exciting and colorful views and sounds of model railroad equipment as it ran its course on some very impressive plaster-cast and papier-mache city and townscape courses set up around the gym.
Today, George Eckwall wants to let the public know that the rail days still exist and the wheels are turning in the village and town settings on the AVRA tabletop course set up in the basement of St. Luke's Church on 3 Church Street.
The two men, each wearing an old-fashioned striped cloth engineer's train hat, were adjusting this and tweaking that so that two of the many locomotives would run on the tracks, as they had in the early 1960's, when the club was first formed.
Eckwall wants to throw more coal into the fire that lights the enthusiasm of area rail hobbyists and perhaps get the club going once again. He said he has plenty of time to make it happen, and as long as the folks turn out to look things over and perhaps gather from time to time to enjoy the model train layout there in the basement, he will be all aboard to assist.
Those interested can email George at grekwall@gmail.com.
Model railroader George Ekwall of Woodsville has set up an extensive tabletop layout in the basement of St. Luke's Church in Woodsville. He invites the public to come by and view this interesting display of railroad history, model locomotives, rail cars, and miniature buildings. He can be reached by email at grekwall@gmail.com. The Bridge Weekly/Bernie Marvin
This handsome layout features a small section of a 16X24-foot model railroad set up at St. Luke's Church in Woodsville. Rail enthusiasts George Ekwall of Woodsville and Jeff Fonda of Landaff work on the layout from time to time and invite the public to view this fascinating piece of railroad history. Those interested can email Ekwall at grekwall@gmail.com. Courtesy photo