Model Trains Span Generations at Huntsburg Museum (w/VIDEO)
January 17, 2018 by Ann Wishart

"This is really the main purpose (of the museum) — to share it with people, give them something they don’t see any more." – Tom Elesh

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Model trains fascinated Tom Elesh since childhood, when he started visiting his uncle’s basement railroad layout.

Over 60 years, that spark has grown from a hobby to a passion to a legacy he is passing on to his son and daughter at the Corner Field Model Railroad Museum and Hobby Shop in Huntsburg Township.

He and his wife, Vicki, and their children, Tom Jr. and Ashley, want to share their love of model trains and railroad culture at the facility they built on their 5 acres six years ago.

The 70-by-32-foot building is entirely dominated by a fantastic 0-gauge model train layout with multiple tracks and up to eight trains at a time running through a city that is hard to describe.

Churches, factories, schools, homes and stores plus cars, utility poles, equipment and human figures complement the perfect model engines and cars as they chug or race along the tracks, controlled by Tom Jr., the engineer in the middle of the complex layout.

Noise from the trains, some emitting a stream of smoke, mixes with jingles from the tiny carnival, including an operating Ferris wheel and merry-go-round.

Three walls, decorated with lifelike buildings painted by Vicki and Ashley, add depth and the full-length mirror on the fourth wall, all make the museum appear to be twice its considerable size.

The seed for the extraordinary display was sewn when young Tom spent as much time as he could in his uncle’s basement in Cleveland, soaking up all the lore and lessons of model trains.

“That was my total inspiration. I lived and breathed to go there,” he said. “In the ‘60s and ‘70s, when trains were fading, they never faded with me.”

Various hobbyists nurtured his fascination. He visited toy shows as far away as New York City and pursued his pastime as an adult, working days in sales at various building supply businesses.

Everyplace he lived he would have a layout and continued to collect trains as well as the colorful accessories every model train aficionado adores.

“I met Vicki in 1993 in Chesterland,” Tom said, adding Vicki was born and raised in Chardon. They bought a house on the west side of Cleveland and within months, had the basement converted to a model train world.

When the family moved to Huntsburg Township, the collection moved with them and picked up steam in the basement of their home.

“It grew and grew and grew and grew,” Tom, 63, said. “Then, five or six years ago, we built this building.”

At the entrance to the museum is a wall full of model train engines and cars behind the glass-topped counter. Sales and repair are a big part of the museum business, Vicki said.

Taped to the top of the counter is a yellowed newspaper article about Mack Lowry and his collection of model railroads in the Akron area.

“We knew people who were inspired by him,” Tom said.

About a dozen of the buildings in the Elesh miniature city are from Lowry’s collection, including a magnificent church.

The components of the layout represent a modern-day city established in the 1940s, Tom said.

It gives visitors a bird’s eye view of how railroads used to be part of a community.

“This is really the main purpose (of the museum) — to share it with people, give them something they don’t see any more,” Tom said.

His son, who graduated from Cardinal High School in 2010, hopes to make the museum his life’s work. Tom Jr., who operates the complex system, also likes to photograph and film full-sized trains — something he started when he got his driver’s license.

“When I was little, Dad would take me to Berea to look at the real trains,” he said. As he got older, he learned how to do the wiring and set up scenery. Vicki taught him to paint and detail the buildings.

Now, as he explains the demo and the trains, he gets a charge out of visitors’ reactions.

“I like seeing smiles on people’s faces,” Tom Jr. said. “I’ve been with it all my life. I’ll never get out of it. It’s a legacy I want to continue.”

Ashley, a freshman at Cardinal High School, takes part in showing visitors the museum and talking about the layout.

A dedicated Cleveland Indians fan, she and her family enjoy playing softball in the diamond they built in the front yard. The project was initiated by the elder Tom as a Christmas gift to Ashley when she was recovering from viral meningitis years ago. Hence the name: Corner Field Model Railroad Museum, because the structure, built by Andy Byler Jr., is at the corner of the field.

“(The museum) has been a big success. The Amish like to visit,” Tom said.

While everyone who comes in is amazed, people with autism are especially focused on the display, Vickie said.

Getting the layout from the basement of their house to the new building took a while, she said.

“As we built (the museum), we brought a section at a time up from the basement,” she said, adding there are plenty more parts to the collection. “The rest is still in the basement.”

As the facility draws more traffic, Tom Sr. said they plan to add on to the west end of the museum, pushing out the wall and expanding the layout to include some farmland and rural components.

“Anything missing here will be at the other end,” he said.