MARYSVILLE — Patrick Huntsinger tinkers with train sets, but certainly not in the conventional way.
He stresses that he’s a “runner” rather then a “collector.”
His sets are scaled to real-life proportions of an actual train and environment.
“I designed it so I can have long straightaways to make believable trains,” he said.
He tries to get every train as long as he can.
It takes him about three hours to get an entire set powered and moving, he said.
It actually takes him longer to put up the scenery surrounding it.
The railroad track is 300 feet long, but is scaled to about two and a half miles.
“People are just stunned to see a set this large,” he said.
“This is the appeal — big and noisy.”
He will also only buy particular carts.
For example, he stays away from Lionel brands because, though they are based off of real carts, are not realistically scaled.
He got into train set running in the early 1990’s in Kansas City.
“I played with them with the kids, and then they just sat around in boxes for years,” he said of the railcars.
“Then I decided to do something with them.”
Though a miniature version of a railroad system, running it is exactly the same, down to how the trains move and how they are powered, he said.
“The physics are the same,” he said.
He tried to get some businesses to display his set, but didn’t get any responses.
He attended Reset Church in Marysville for a while. And he thought it would be the perfect location.
“Why not just set it up and have it free to the public,” he said of the display not set up there.
