By Jane Smith
meadville tribune
When Dennis Mead was 2 years old, he received a Lionel train for Christmas as a gift from his grandfather. In some ways, more than 50 years later, Mead is still playing with trains.
President of the French Creek Valley Railroad Historical Society, Mead is at the Downtown Mall as one of the volunteers manning a train display for the holidays.
Wearing a society T-shirt that features a picture of a train, he explains the operation for viewers of the exhibit.
Three different trains travel around the three-tiered display, up and down hills and through tunnels. Engines depict the Erie Railroad, Bessemer and Erie-Lackawanna Railroad. “One is like ‘the 520’ (train car) made in Meadville, but
never got painted,” explains Mead.
The train was a gift to the society, which has had it on display a number of times, either at the mall or other sites. This month it’s on display in the former Fox’s Sew and Vac location. As you enter the display, on the right is a sign showing the fire signals of the former Erie Railroad and a table featuring the society’s T-shirts for sale.
The display depicts a “whimsical town,” but not Meadville, according to Mead, a descendant of Meadville founder David Mead. But it has many of the same sights once seen in Meadville when the railroad industry was at its busiest.
Removing a roof from one miniature building, he shows the “round house” where cars were repaired. Sitting along the track are cars with Dairyman’s League, Southern, New Haven and Chattanooga etched on them — all from former railroad cars.
Although this display is large, Mead still has his Lionel train, “which only went around in circles,” he laughed. He recalled his grandfather, Neil Harden, set up a train display in his basement and he would go over to play with it. It was in the 1950s before dryers were a common appliance in a home. His grandmother hung her laundry to dry in the basement, and Dennis would lie on the floor and play with the train, his head sometimes peeking out between the articles of hanging laundry.
“It gets in your blood,” he said of the love of trains. The society’s mission is to acquaint the younger generation with the railroad history of Meadville and the area, as well as the importance of the railroad.
As an adult living in Erie, Mead had a display that he used for Cub Scouts to earn patches. He had a rule that there must be one adult for every five children on a tour of his display. It soon became five adults for every kid, he laughed, recalling how the display became a popular interest of the adults.
Although Mead didn’t work on the railroad, his father was a fireman on steam engines and a signal department officer. He said Meadville was built with railroad history and although its importance to the city’s economy isn’t strong here any more, Mead said railroading is coming back.
“With the current operator of the Western New York and Pennsylvania (Railroad), it has brought traffic back to the town,” he said.
For one child, their history-building effort was succeeding. Six-year-old Hunter Dibble’s eyes were shining with excitement as he stopped to look at the display Friday. “Can you slow it down? Can you make it go any faster? Does it go up the hill,” asked Dibble, one question after another, as his fascination with the display was immediate.
“It’s good,” said Dibble of the display. He has a train set of his own, he said, which features children’s-TV favorite Thomas the Tank Engine.
Although the mall display is the society’s chief interest for the holiday season, it continues to work toward establishing a tooling and railroad heritage center in Meadville in the future.
Jane Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at jsmith@meadvilletribune.com.
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