ALL ABORD FOR MINIATURE TRAINS

The Hosps' realistic train diorama includes a number of homes, business and factories, along with over 60 railcars and locamotives.

Hosp hopes to eventually personalize his scene to the interests of his family. the concrete plant in the background reflects the career of one of the Hosps' relatives, who works at Lone Star Cement.

In Ken Hosp's junkroom a big tree shades a group of friends as they sit on a bench and talk. On the road a 1954 Mercedes SL gullwing glides by. A few people are ordering up shakes and cheeseburgers at Bob's burger stand down the road while a few blocks away brakemen watch as a freight train pulls out of the station.

Sure, it seems a strange thing to have such a scene in your basement but if miniature trains are your hobby, you're not surprised at all. You know that the friends, the driver and his vintage Mercedes, and even the brakemen are part of a diorama, or what miniature train enthusiasts call a layout.

The basement layout is a highly-detailed one and is the result of nearly a year's work by Hosp, his father Howard and son Adam. It serves as the home of a 60-car railroad that includes steam engines, modern diesels, rail sidings and crossings, tunnels, depots and switching yards.

The surprisingly detailed set, elevated to waist level on a hand-tailored table designed expressly for the train, includes all the elements and infrastructure of a bustling small town with numerous old-style brick storefronts, a busy concrete factory with silos and a rail spur, a pleasant Southwestern-style depot and a smooth, blacktopped highway which winds through the town and surrounding countryside, passing farmhouses and crossing bridges above the tracks.

The Proctor and Gamble employee says the project is the result of an early interest in toy trains sparked in him by an uncle who constructed a large and detailed diorama in his Jefferson City home.

Seeing his uncle run his train on the diorama spurred Hosp and his father to begin their own miniature scene years ago but as Hosp grew older and developed an interest in sports, work on the diorama came to a halt and the tracks, railroad cars and miniature fixtures were packed away in the home of Hosp's parents, near St. Louis.

About a year ago, Hosp's interest in designing a miniature layout was sparked once again so he and his father unpacked much of the largely unused toy train equipment and set to work to design the layout which had been delayed for so many years. This time around, Hosp's own son Adam is helping out.

"What I like about doing this is that three generations are involved," said Hosp. "My dad and I started a layout and now we're beginning one again and Adam is getting old enough to be responsible and help with the layout."

A former storage room was the obvious choice as the location for the Hosp Railroad Co.

"The first thing they had to do was find me another place for all my junk," laughed Hosp's wife Robyn.

Once this was accomplished, Howard, Ken and Adam began drawing up a preliminary design for their scene.

"You have to make a plan for what you're going to build and how you're going to do it," explained Hosp, who said such details as the route of the track, the location of hills and valleys and the placement of miniature homes and storefronts were considered as plans were drawn up.

After the design was completed, Ken and Adam built a wooden platform around the perimeter of the room with a walkway in the middle to allow access to all parts of the track.

Openings were left in the table both above and below to allow for the installation of tracks and electrical wiring to run the train engines and the electric rail switches.

"The electronics can get pretty complicated," said Hosp. "My dad comes down four or five times a year and helps out and he did all of the wiring."

Once the table was completed, the Hosps began the exacting process of installing track.

Ken Hosp explained that the tracks are first set down on a bed made of corkboard. The bed, with tracks attached, is secured to the top of the table with electric wiring run to the tracks and switches from below. Then, to add the needed touch of realism, the corkboard is covered with "ballast," which consists of small pebbles similar to the tiny grains embedded in roofing shingles. The ballast, available in hobby shops, is a perfect miniature of the type of limestone rip-rap used to cover the raised railbeds of true-life railroads.

With track, wiring and ballast in place, the way was clear for the installation of scenery. The architects, electricians and carpenters who designed, built and wired the table and tracks were now called upon to be sculptors.

Hosp explained that the hills and knolls which surround the track began as clumps of fine screen, similar to but much lighter than that used in screen doors. The screen serves as a rough outline of the desired physical feature and gives a form for the plaster of Paris used to sculpt the features. Newspaper and other material was first dipped in a plaster of Paris mixture and then applied to the screen form in building up the hills.

Built into a couple of the hills are rail tunnels with high entrances fashioned from what appears to be stone. Jutting from the surrounding hillside are exposed rock facings.

"You can build the tunnel openings and rocks with molds you buy at the hobby store," explained Hosp. "What you do is pour plaster of Paris into molds and once that's dry, you use paints to stain the rock and make it look real."

The hillsides are covered in grass which is formed from a green foam material purchased at a hobby shop. Dried flower stems and twigs are covered with green foam or fluff and look remarkably like trees and shrubbery.

Near the tunnel is a small settlement replete with a factory building, fire station and storefront. The buildings are made from plastic models built to scale, some of which were leftovers from Hosp's first diorama attempt as a youngster.

"Some of these things like that depot," he said, pointing to a very realistic Southwestern-style two story passenger depot, "I bought when I was young for $2. If you bought those things now, you'd pay 20 or 30 bucks."

Each of the buildings gets a treatment of paint or other material to give them some "age," said Hosp. The paint is used to give the illusion of the type of fading older buildings would suffer or to give them a patina of dust. Even some of the railcars, made of glossy plastic, are given a coating of matte finish to make them appear to be covered in a coat of dust and grime.

Such attention to detail is why Ken Hosp feels that while he's shooting for Christmas as the completion date for the project, it could go on as long as he wants.

This is just one of those hobbies where you could never get done because you can add so many details or add to the project," he said.

At present, he is working to finish the land features in one section of the project and then will begin applying grass, trees, rocks and other features.

Once the project is "done" Hosp is not exactly sure what he'll do. He says he may take out a closet which adjoins the train room and extend the tracks out into a family room or he may end the project completely and begin another one in the family room itself.

"This was my first crack at a layout and there are always things you'd change," he said. "I'm pretty proud of the first effort but I may start another one."