Toy trains charm audience
Megan Strickland
A Lionel Blue Comet whizzes past a village of figurines built by Preston Miller of St. Ignatius, using model train sets.
Megan Strickland
Madison Incashola, 4, is amazed as a model train zooms past in a blur.
Megan Strickland
Elexa Monroy, 7, watches Preston Miller’s toy train display steam down the track at Four Winds Trading Post.
Megan Strickland
Conductor Preston Miller adds a drop of oil to the Lionel engine.
Megan Strickland
Madison Incashola, 4, is amazed as a model train zooms past in a blur.
Megan Strickland
Elexa Monroy, 7, watches Preston Miller’s toy train display steam down the track at Four Winds Trading Post.
Megan Strickland
The tiny village captures the attention of youngsters and adults with its Santas, replica cars and railroad signals that lift up and down.
Megan Strickland
Oliver Rowe points to a monorail model train at the second annual “Running of the Toy Trains” held at Four Winds Trading Post.
Megan Strickland
Conductor Preston Miller opens Four Winds Trading Post for the “Runnning of the Trains.”
Megan Strickland
Conductor Preston Miller treats his trains gently.
Megan Strickland
Conductor Preston Miller treats his trains gently.
Megan Strickland
Conductor Preston Miller opens Four Winds Trading Post for the “Runnning of the Trains.”
Megan Strickland
The tiny village captures the attention of youngsters with its Santas, replica cars and railroad signals that lift up and down.
Megan Strickland
The tiny village captures the attention of youngsters with its Santas, replica cars and railroad signals that lift up and down.
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Most days the antique toy trains carefully collected by Preston Miller of St. Ignatius live a life one would expect of relic playthings deemed obsolete by passing decades. They sit, dusty in display cases, longing for appreciation once given by a generation of people who have matured into gray-haired, crinkle-eyed grandparents that remember the thrill of hearing the whistle of a gleaming Lionel steaming down the track.
On Sunday, for only a few hours, the trains again received love and admiration, as parents and grandparents shuffled through the old Ravalli Train Depot and examined the lit display cases of trains from the 1930s and ‘40s that lined the entryway to the main show. The intricate set up of half a dozen or so engines weaving through a snowy mountainside village of figurines kept a steady flow of people running through Miller’s Four Winds Trading Post for four hours during the second annual “Running of the Toy Trains.”
“We’d better take a break,” Miller said as he put tiny drops of lubricant into the main line engine, a Lionel standard large Blue Comet. “It’s been going for two hours, fifteen minutes. There’s been a steady stream of people.”
After five minutes, Miller was back at it, fielding questions from the crowd.
“What year is the monorail?” an older gentleman asked.
“It’s 1939, Leland monorail from Chicago,” Miller replied. “They had a monorail at the world’s fair in 1939, and this company sold them. They only made them for about three years, then they went bankrupt during the Depression, so you don’t really see them anymore.”
Most of the questions came from older people, accompanied by their children and grandchildren, who watched the engines whir past while Christmas and mountain music played in the background.
“It’s just lots of older people who remember enjoying this stuff,” Miller said. “They are bringing their kids to see it.”
Seven-year-old Elexa Monroy’s jaw dropped as the engines flashed by. Five-year-old Oliver Rowe grinned as he pointed to the blue comet.
St. Ignatius resident Sandie Blevins said she enjoyed the show.
“I was interested in toy trains and thought it would be a good thing to do to celebrate Christmas,” Blevins said.
The charming event is something Miller would like to share with the public more often. He bought the Ravalli train depot for $200 three decades ago when it came up for auction. An old engine and the depot sit on the grounds of the trading post, where he sells Native American goods. Over the years he built a collection of toy trains into a museum display, but he had not had a running of the trains in approximately a decade when he and his son-in-law decided to dust the collection off a year and a half ago. They cleaned up the depot, put up the track and opened the doors for the first “Running of the Toy Trains” in 2012. It was so successful, they decided to do an encore event this year.
Miller said he would like to keep the museum open more often, but business has been too slow to warrant paying an employee to work the collection.
“I’ll probably keep doing it at least once a year,” Miller said. “It would be more fun to do it more often, but we’re still trying to figure out how to do that.”
