European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 7, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Focus Story and photos by l. Emmett Lewis or. Staff writer mountains Lay torn in half Railroad tracks Are pulled apart and a building sits atop a stoc Kyard font e a picture of Tavui in two California towns More devastating than   by a whole Herd of Hurn Ancs and a t on pc of earthquakes combined. The devastation even in miniature echoes the planner c twos of . Wight Parsons basement in Walldorf Germany. Amid the separated sections of a giant Tahl Elop display of California Mountain Railroad scenery Lay paints brushes drills soldering , so Revdr Ivers glue and a multitude of miniature Trees grass people vehicles and unidentifiable shapes of Wood and plastic. The members and 11 ends of the Rhein mainline Railroad club gingerly crawl or step through All of this turmoil is they carefully put limbs on miniature Trees fake grass on fake ground and weathering on midget vehicles and buildings Iri a Complex display that covers about 90 Square feet. The Parsons basement has been the scene of a months Long Effort by members of the Rhein main a club to assemble an to Model Railroad exhibit 1/87 scale. The club s exhibit built around Parsons train layout will represent the United states at the International Model railway exhibition to be held at the Frankfurt mess this weekend. With the deadline for the exhibition less than a week away some of the club members and their spouses and friends have been working Day and night to finish the Railroad display. Jeffrey Adam the club s Secretary spent about 120 hours building a Wood slaughterhouse just one of Many buildings in the display. Other buildings took about 50 hours Eai a he said. The buildings were built from kits but they never c ome out perfect like in the drawings he said. Some of the Wood pieces arc warped and have lube steamed to straighten them out and other pieces have to be manufactured from scratch. Adam uses Chare Oal and different colors of Chalk to add weathering to the miniature structures and vehicles so they Don t look unrealistically shiny and new. Several wives have also helped with the project. I a Maric Adam stained the Small wooden buildings built miniature Trees and did All of the translating to gel tin club s paperwork prepared for the exhibition. Mar y Beth Parson helped with some of the background painting while one of her husband s coworkers 2nd la. Joe Primosch helped with construction and with the detailed painting of the background. Rave around he track. Cross Section snows train Irac routed below do Salty. Model Hobby even the neighbors got caught up in the project the Parsons next door neighbor regularly cooked food and baked goods for the group to eat and another neighbor helped with construction and with casting the Model s River in acrylic. It s fun having the people come and it s a marvelous project for my husband commented mrs. Parsons this Type of Hobby is especially important for Guys who work As had As they do in the military it s something to broaden their Hori on Sand get them involved m the Community. It also leads to a lot of new friendships. The finished display will show a couple of California " y migh have appeared in we chose this period of time to portray some of the nicest elements of american railroading Bergen 10 said. It allows us to run steam trains some of the older style passenger trains As Well As some of the newer streamlines that were coming out at that  because of transitional Railroad Era selected diesel elect no locomotives which superseded the steam  can be shown in the same display giving germans a better representation of american Railroad history Bergen said. There Are some major differences in German i roads and those in the United slate Bergen said str d " frcnct"1 in a pm Isis in modelling. A Lieval i the a Mol in the states arc usually Yum Sel elect no the european trains Are usually pulled by elect no engines he said. There Are also far More passenger trams in Europe than in the states. Train a Del " " Omell iii5 n top seems to be on Tram  or action and use of off the shelf of Taipei Ugaz be november 7,19t5