Give a kid a Lionel train and look what happens when he’s grown

November is National Model Railroad Month and Fayette County resident Mike Flynn, a member of the Piedmont Division of the National Model Railroad Association, opens his doors to model railroad enthusiasts each year as part of the “Piedmont Pilgrimage,” so that they can take a look at his incredible layout.

There are 40 layouts around the metro Atlanta area and many model railroaders, and their friends or guests, will drive around and peek in at the work of other enthusiasts.

They use the tour to get ideas for their own model railroads, advice on how to do certain things or to just be amazed at the efforts of their peers.

Flynn’s layout is one that wows the crowds and he is always available to lend an ear to a fellow model railroader and offer some suggestions on everything from laying tracks to building trees or making roads.

Flynn’s passion for the model railroad began like it does for most enthusiasts.

“It’s the typical story. I got a Lionel train one Christmas, when I was about 6 years old,” Flynn recalled. “That created an interest and I never really lost it.”

He moved to Fayette County with his wife, Donna, in 1978 and they bought their house because of the basement. Flynn, a retired Delta employee, knew that it would be where he built his layout and over the next 27 years, he would spend time working on the layout.

It is 20-by-20 feet and all of the track has been hand-laid. That means that he cut and glued 48,000 ties himself. The layout could support five running trains at once, although it will typically only run one train with 14 cars.

Flynn modeled the layout on a portion of Colorado during the late 1960s. Some was created by research but most of it came from his memory. The 33-foot-long backdrop is an oil painting painted by a friend a number of years ago.

Flynn “finished” the layout about three years ago but admitted that it wasn’t something he worked on every day and added that there was a seven-year period where he didn’t touch the layout.

Many in the crowd on Saturday chuckled when they heard him call it “finished” because most model railroaders know that a layout is never really done, as there is always something that can be added.

While setting the layout in a certain period of time requires Flynn to pay attention to details such as not using cars that weren’t around back then, he has been able to get creative with the layout adding a number of unique things to the layout.

For instance, he has created a six-hole mountain golf course over the span of the layout, with the final hole ending on one of the cars of the train. There are also giraffes, a hanging skeleton and an “Eat More Chicken” sign. Flynn passes around a list with all of the fun stuff he has on the layout and encourages visitors to walk around and see what they can find.

Over 50 people came to view the layout on the two Saturdays in November that he held the open house and they all seemed impressed. Many of the layouts they see are more traditional and go against a wall, while Flynn’s is located in the center of the room and is anything but traditional. He is able to access different parts of the layout from underneath, thanks to seven layouts that are very well hidden.

A father and son from Tucker, both named Dan Fullerton, were amazed with Flynn’s layout and said it was among the top two of the layouts they had visited this month. The other great layout, according to them and several other visitors on Saturday, belonged to Dr. Joe Nichols, whose layout is also non-traditional, and includes a train with a video camera on it.

Flynn is deservedly proud of his creation and can’t choose a favorite part.

“The whole thing is my favorite,” he said, adding that re-creating real life in miniature is the best part of model railroading for him. Flynn also enjoys the teaching aspect of model railroading, especially during November’s Piedmont Pilgrimage.

“That’s one of the reasons we do this,” Flynn said, pointing at the younger Fullerton. “We hope to get young people interested in model railroading.”

There are 22,000 members in the National Model Railroading Association and while there are a lot more modelers, the group would like to pass on the love of the hobby to younger people and have more people join the organization.

Dozens of people continued to walk around the layout and take pictures on Saturday, many of them sporting model railroading club shirts. Flynn was humble when accepting their praise and quickly turned the attention to his guests and what they were building. Building a model railroad can be a rather solitary process, so when fellow enthusiasts get together and share their passion for the hobby, everybody has fun.

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