photography

Trains: Blair

Blair

Both sides of Blair’s family has worked on the railroad. He has five family members riding the rails.

“I love seeing my brother drive by on the train,” he says.

Trains: Face Front

Blair’s been collecting train memorabilia since he was young. He has an O-gauge train set at home, and the GTs are his favorites.

He’s grateful for the Central Michigan Model Railroad Club.

“I can’t personally work on the railroad because I’m deaf, so this is the next best thing.”


Trains: Art

Art

Art has been collecting model trains all his life.

His mom and dad got him started as a kid, and he still has the original toy train. “It still runs,” he says.

After his children left the house, he converted their bedrooms into train rooms.

“It keeps me occupied,” Art says.

Trains: Art

After 20 years in the club, with everyone placing trains on each other’s sets, how does he know which train is his?

“We just know.”


Gibraltar Trade Center

It’s like ‘Toy Story’ — some toys enjoy a life of playtime with children, while others are collectors items, doomed to live out their fading lives in glass cases.

So it was at the Gibraltar Trade Center. Here, the characters of my youth — Ninja Turtles and WWF wrestlers and Spider-Man — existed in purgatory. Premium prices on shitty quality toys placed in precarious positions.

Consider the Marvel super heroes chained by their Pac-Man overlord to duel with their counterpart villains. Every day. Forever.

Or the poor headless Star Wars figurine ensnared in the jaws of an unforgiving and sadistic toy shark. The horror.

Spider-Man tried to make his escape, and we rooted for him.


Trains: Blair

Trains In Jackson: Blair

Both sides of Blair’s family have worked on the railroad. He has five family members riding the rails.

“I love seeing my brother drive by on the train,” he says.

Blair’s been collecting train memorabilia since he was young. He has an O-gauge train set at home, and the GTs are his favorites.

He’s grateful for the Central Michigan Model Railroad Club.

“I can’t personally work on the railroad because I’m deaf, so this is the next best thing.”