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New York policeman, a master model railroader, said he’s owned train layouts since he was a kid. He works with HO models, which are the most popular size model trains and use cars much smaller than the garden-scale ones.
“I’ve been interested in it all my life,” Glock said one recent morning as he worked on a new building that could end up on the 15-foot-by-27-foot train layout he estimates takes up about a third of his basement. He says he has 80 locomotives and a couple of hundred freight cars in his collection. “It keeps you sharp. There’s carpentry [required], there’s electrical, there’s mechanical.” And newer parts are all digital, he said, so he must keep up with the times. But the strongest attraction of the hobby now, he said, is social. “I’ve made a lot of friends,” he said. “We’ve become fast friends for almost 20 years.”
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Like many other HO model train fans, Glock has built his layout to recreate a specific time and place. In his case, his trains come from 1950 to 1955 and represent the fictional L&N and Southern Railroad in western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. “I needed an imaginary place to set my railroad,” he said. “It makes it plausible.”
Liles, the Piedmont Division’s 55-year-old superintendent (the club takes its titles from the ways railroad companies were organized), says he got interested in trains, the real ones, when he was a boy. “I was fascinated by trains,” he said. “When I felt that power, I was hooked. … It was something about the horsepower, the strength of the locomotive, the skill, the weight.”
He got a taste of that power in the 1970s, when his dad worked for a south Georgia company that made vegetable oil. He accompanied his father to work and watched the trains load the oil and move cars of it around. Sometimes, he could catch a ride. “I’d bring my lunch with me and ride with the train crew,” he said.
Liles got his first model train set at age 6 and got his first HO set when he was about 8. He stayed with it, and these days, he said, his model train set fills a room in his home and features something like 1,500 cars. He calls his imaginary line, based on the Southern Railway, the Saluda Central Railroad.
Charlie Crawford of eastern Cobb County bases his HO layout on the New York Central Railroad as it would have appeared in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York in either 1927 or 1952. He switches them out, based on which period he wants to replicate. The main difference between the two, he said, is the introduction of diesel locomotives.
The 69-year-old retired facilities manager, who was
born in Brooklyn and lived in New Jersey for 23 years until his job brought him to Atlanta, wants his trains to be accurate historically. “I’ve always enjoyed history and it’s a good way to make history come alive,” he said. “The railroads were certainly a big part of what built this country.”
He has another interest in model railroading: playing with others. He’s part of a group of modelers called Atlanta Interlocking Model Railroaders who build modular HO layouts that connect with layouts made by other club members. “I like to build things,” he said. “I’ve always been a model-maker, even when I
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was a kid. I’m a builder.”
Charlie Crawford
James Bando walks alongside one of the engines on his outdoor model railroad.
His layout now can handle up to 125 locomotives at once. With the interlocking railroaders, he said, he and his fellow modelers can build layouts that can handle 425 engines. Often, they fill a church gym with a single layout. “Walking with your train around the layout took a 45-minute walk,” he said. The 44-foot-by-22-foot “garden scale” model train layout Russell and Leslie Ann Bundy display at their Marietta home doesn’t leave their yard.
They installed the layout iwhen they had to replant after a tornado blew through a few years ago. Now they have can run model trains on tracks laid among the hundreds of azaleas, hostas and other plants in their garden.
Their model trains depict ones designed to carry people, for the most part, Russell said. “I do have a freight train,” he said, “but we don’t like freight trains that much. We do mostly passenger trains.”
What keeps them tending model trains day after day? It means they stay busy doing something they enjoy, Russell said, and “in case something like the coronavirus happens to hit, you don’t have to go anywhere.”
“It’s a retirement hobby,” said the 68-year-old who worked for 37 years at Lockheed Martin in Marietta. “You can work on it, but you don’t have to work on it.
“We’re out there a little bit every day. … It gets us out of the house.”
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Taking it to the screens: Library programs go online
By Donna Williams Lewis
You might never need to know how to tie a bow tie, but there’s something soothing during a global pandemic about watching a little Facebook video of Decatur librarian David Russell teaching the technique.
Posted a few weeks before COVID-19 shut libraries down, it was Russell’s first foray into producing video for the masses.
What the reference librarian didn’t know then was that video production was about to become a big part of his life.
For years, library systems have been offering their members digital products such as ebooks, audiobooks, movies and music on services such as Libby and Hoopla.
But as the coronavirus quarantine took hold this year, metro area librarians immersed themselves in new ways to connect with their communities through homegrown, online programming.
Zooming through technical learning curves, librarians have become video producers.
They’re doing everything from live-streaming book club meetings and mindfulness meditation sessions to posting story times for kids and adults. They offer virtual gardening, cooking and yoga classes and hosting online game and trivia nights.
And it’s all free. No library card required.
Until quarantine, social media was primarily used by DeKalb County libraries to inform people about programs they could attend at library branches, said Myguail Chappel, manager of DeKalb County Public Library’s Take-Out Services.
“We were using it as a way
to get people into our doors,” Chappel said.
Now, the library is using social media to reach online audiences of unlimited proportions. Meanwhile, social media is helping the library raise its profile as people add library sites to the mix of Facebook, YouTube and Instagram pages they follow, Chappel said.
“Where before the library may have been an afterthought … now, I think everyday that they use their social media we’re on their feed. So they’re always thinking about us as a resource,” said Chappel, who produced a video on allergy relief for the library. “Hopefully, through following us, we will
david russell
offer them something that will help them in their life some type of way or give them some type of respite from their current worries.”
Libraries typically offer instruction on navigating the digital resources they employ. That’s a good thing in a time when people of all ages have been forced into the virtual life.
Story times that routinely drew 30 to 40 people to the Decatur Library are drawing
hundreds of views online.
Elisabeth Harris, youth services librarian at the Tucker Library, has enjoyed the challenge of learning how to upload, download and edit her videos into “something publishable.”
A speaker of four languages, she performs the song “Bingo” in
French, and with the help of her dog, Cooper, in a Facebook video shot at her home.
She was thrilled when a parent sent her a video of their daughter singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” in Italian — something she’d learned from watching Harris.
“I’m getting emotional,” Harris said, recalling her story time regulars. “I really miss them an awful lot.”
In addition to staff-produced content, the DeKalb library system offers programming by contract performers such as Atlanta harpist Angelica Hairston, whose Facebook video concert has drawn more than 5,000 views.
The highly lauded artistic director of the nonprofit Urban Youth Harp Ensemble performed the live, hour-long program on May 18.
“For me, it was a time for thinking, ‘What are the songs that make me feel calm in a time of chaos?’” Hairston said, referring to the coronavirus pandemic.
The first song she performed was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Russell’s tie video was an offshoot of the “tiebrary” he started at the Decatur Library. Known for the bow ties he wears to work, Russell lends ties from his large personal collection to library patrons who need ties for job interviews, court dates at the county courthouse a block away or for other important events.
“So many people don’t know how to tie a bow tie and they think it’s a super hard process,” he said. By the end of May, his video had snagged 871 views.
“I think the thing about librarians is we find ways to help on a shoestring budget … in quiet ways, where people can still have their dignity,” Russell said. “That’s what we do, day in and
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Georgia Institute of Technology Brain Research Study
SEE YOUR BRAIN AT WORK!
We are conducting a memory and stress study to examine spatial navigation techniques used during a computerized virtual navigation game. This is a two-day study and eligible participants will perform some of the navigation tasks while receiving magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans. *Non-MRI option available.
We are looking for men and women volunteers who are: • 65 – 80 years of age • In good physical health
COVID-19 Notice: We ARE currently taking calls for future participant scheduling. CALL NOW!
You will be compensated for your participation: Contact us at maplab@gatech.edu or call (404) 913-0834
Schedule a virtual tour and be entered to win a $100 Visa Gift card!
Welcome to Addington Place Rest assured, we’re here to help.
Here, individual attention informs almost everything we do. You can see it in the wide array of tailored activities and programs designed to bring joy, engage and delight. Whether in Assisted Living, Personal Care or Memory Care, our delicious restaurant-style meals, first-rate amenities, beautiful environment and welcoming, supportive atmosphere make Addington Place a secure, enriching place to live. Providing Caring Protection and Joyful Support
On-site Testing for Our Community: We are symptom screening residents twice a day and employees when they arrive for work, and can administer tests if they show symptoms
Courtyard Concerts: Working with local musicians, we are creating outdoor courtyard concerts to entertain and delight our residents
Outdoor Family Visits: Practicing safe social distancing, we are hosting outdoor resident visits with friends and families
Hallway Socializing & Therapy: Life Enrichment and fitness programs have been redesigned, allowing shared resident participation from individual doorways Ask about a virtual tour! Just call for more information. If you have questions, we’re always here to help.
