At the bank this past Friday, Dec. 14, we had trains leaving the station all day. Our local branch of First Bank and Trust invited Richard “Rich” Holzapfel to bring some model trains to display during the bank’s annual Christmas open house.
“I’ve played with model trains off and on for 45 years,” he said. “I enjoyed them as a child myself but for years I had them boxed up and stored away and didn’t do anything with them. It was when my grandson expressed an interest putting one together that I got my old ones back out again. Well, getting some of the engines running again prompted a trip the store in Sioux Falls. It just so happened that there was one of the big expos going on down at the fairgrounds at the time, and folks from the store recommended I head on down and speak with those guys. I did, and I joined the local builders associations that day. The rest is history I guess.”
“Today here at the bank I brought 6 modules. Each module tells it’s own little story. Each landscape has its own unique history and I use different methods and materials. I usually start off with an idea, and go from there. These farm fields, you notice the tilled ground there, that’s actually cardboard corrugations. You find you don’t throw much away when you build models. I’ve got one module that has a hot air balloon that rises and falls. I’ve built multi-tiered modules like a lot of the guys on a rising spindle, and that’s a lot of fun too and a lot of work.I don’t think of it as work really. Now that I’m retired I can easily spend whole days working on these, especially during the winter. I’ll head down to my basement first thing, get started and my wife will call me up for supper time and I won’t have realized the whole day has gone by, it’s easy to get lost in the world you create. It’s all in the details, and I love bringing them out to events like to share it with other people.”
Towns, farm, homes with working lights, cars with working lights, tiny chickens actually pecking feed in the yard, this is the amazing attention to detail one can find in Holzapfel’s models. His coal trains were actually laden with cargo too, not with coal, but chocolates for visitors. Another fun detail was Sasquatch. Yes he’s real, or at least you can find him on Holzapfel’s model.
“I always move him around, hide him in plain sight so that kids and people who regularly come and see my setups never know where they’ll find him next.”
It took this reporter 3 times around the table, but I eventually did find him, hiding in plain sight. In all it was wonder to adults and kids alike, and a great addition to the Christmas celebrations downtown.
News for 12-20-18
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