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50,000 Lego pieces help build model railroad display


Club joins train enthusiasts for flea market and show at farm council grounds

Monday, December 1, 2003
BY GINA DAMRON
News Special Writer

As trains whizzed by below, a short man with jet-black hair and a yellowish face, stood on the edge of the roof of a red and white block building.

Onlookers, unsurprisingly similar in appearance, looked up at the man, who stood stiff with a permanent smile on his face.

There was no real danger because the man on the roof and his audience were only plastic Lego figures - as were the trains and buildings that surrounded them on Sunday at the one-day Michigan Model Railroad Flea Market and Show in Ann Arbor.

For no particular reason, it's tradition for the Michigan Lego Train Club to put a man on the roof of a building in their display, which the group creates for train shows, organization member Lester Witter said.

MichLTC, which was founded in 2000, made its first appearance at the annual event, when the group presented a 16-foot-by-12-foot display.

MichLTC, also called the Michigan Lego Users Group, joined more than 1,000 train enthusiasts of all ages, and vendors at the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds. The Legos attracted crowds of adults and swarms of children, who stared in awe at the model, which Chris Leach said is worth more than $10,000.

"(Kids) go wild over it," said Leach, a founding member of MichLTC, whose 6-year-old son, Ethan, helped with the setup. "That makes it worthwhile."

Other local train organizations also displayed models at the event, including Rails on Wheels and Michigan Model Train Center.

Vendors also set up booths in flea-market fashion and sold everything from old and new model trains and tracks, to old railroad papers and railroad-related books.

Director Jeff Fryman, who is a member of Rails on Wheels, said prices ranged from relatively cheap to as high as $700 for brass locomotives.

Over the past year, Leach has spent more than $15,000 on new Legos, many of which are specialty items. He said there were more than 50,000 Lego pieces in the model the group presented on Sunday.

Most of the buildings, which were all built before the show, are worth more than $500 individually because they contain rare pieces. Each of the display's 200 10-inch-by-10-inch base plates, or 32 studs-by-32-studs to Lego fanatics, cost roughly $5 each.

The display, which took three hours to assemble, was among the smaller models the group has created, Leach said. The largest spanned 20-feet-by-50-feet. The 25-member nonprofit group has a display at the Festival of Trees in Dearborn and has several shows planned within the next three weeks.

But the size or cost of the model was of no concern for the dozens of young boys eager to play with the extra Lego sets the group set out near the display.

"I like how (the trains) run," said Ann Arbor resident Evan Heetderks, 8, who owns at least five train sets. "I like setting up the tracks."

Even adults, like Evan's grandfather Jim Foulke, were amazed at the intricate detail and design of the Lego display, which contained several custom-made pieces not from prepackaged sets.

"This is really impressive," said Foulke, an Ann Arbor resident, adding that he isn't even a "train person."

After seeing the models and playing with toy trains, 3-year-old Keith Kozma was ready to head to his Ann Arbor home and set up his Lego train set around the Christmas tree, dad Doug Kozma said, as he kneeled to show his son the Lego display.

"I was into trains as a kid, but I don't think they had anything like this," Doug Kozma said of the Lego exhibit.