Bruce Greenburg’s Layout Open House
May 1, 2011
By Bill Day
Most
modelers I know say they “started with a Lionel train set.”Modelers
growing up in the ‘30s and 40’s owe their interest in large part to
Joshua Lionel Cowan of Irvington, New Jersey.
Cowan’s creativity—working semaphores, bascule bridges, coal tipples,
animated milk cars—launched what he called “the greatest hobby on
earth.” Last month, to bring back those days, Potomac Division modelers
crowded around Bruce Greenburg’s O Gauge layout featuring most of the
rolling stock and structures of the famed Lionel Lines.
To
no one’s surprise, Bruce is the founder of Greenburg Shows, a
universally popular series of traveling exhibits that started in the
East and eventually reached every big city in America. His layout
originated as the focus of the Greenburg Shows, the country’s first
large-scale modular train exhibit. So successful were the shows that
Kalmbach Publishing purchased the production and made it a subsidiary
of the corporation.Moreover, Bruce and his wife, Linda, published a
wide variety of early enthusiast books and maintenance manuals for
Lionel lovers. To read Lionel catalogs of 60 years ago is to get a free
rail pass to one’s youth.
The
Lionel layout in Alexandria is, in Bruce’s words,” a light and sound
show.” Hundreds of lights dot the layout: street lamps, semaphores,
street markers, bumpers, crossing gatesand passenger car interiors all
glow or blink for visitors. The iconic Hellgate Bridge, whose prototype
is in New York, is crested with dazzling chase lights, outlining the
bridge and its famous arc.
Two
main rail lines serve a diesel freight consist and a steam passenger
train. Passenger cars are complete down to, er, water closets with
effluent pipes. The steam Engine cab echoes with chatter among
engineers, firemen and conductors. Within the mainlines are two trolley
shuttles and a smaller circle of track for a scale children’s train
ride.
At
a recent National Model Railroad Association national convention, a
psychiatrist who is also a modeler, conducted a clinic titled “Are
Train Modelers Nuts?” (The clinic was mobbed). After discussing
the research, the focus groups, the anecdotal evidence, the clinician
said that the driving force, the obvious passion, the indisputable
signature of the modeler was…”nostalgia.”
So,
if it’s nostalgia you wanted, Bruce provided it. His time capsule was
everything you hoped it would be. In building his exhibit,
sharing it with us, popularizing model railroads and bringing the
experience to every corner of America, Bruce and his miniature world
belong in the pantheon of America’s modeling stars.
Jalbum 8.2
