TRAIN TOWN HAS MOVED TO THE NEWTON DEPOT!!
The new home of Wade's Train Town is now open to the public each Saturday from 10 am until 4 pm in the Model Railroad Center at the Newton Depot, 1115 North Main Avenue, Newton, NC.
What Is Train Town?
Wade's Train Town is an HO Scale display layout
originally built by Wade Warren between 1984 and 1995 in the Brookford Community
Center, Brookford, NC.
The layout represents Wade's interpretation of a town with over 280 structures, most with operating lights and other features, that has
a residential area, downtown, a carnival park, light industry, and heavy industrial areas. Two main lines circle the layout and are operational
and there is a respectable stock of locomotives and rolling stock.
The room occupied by the layout while at the Brookford
Community Center also had tools, equipment, and supplies normally found in a model railroader's shop inventory.
We have recreated a portion of this in the new
setting at the Model Railroad Center of the Newton Depot. We did a lot of work
before our first public viewing at the Brookford Community
Center in 2006 to clean, repair, conduct initial upgrade of the trackwork and clean up the room and equipment.
Initial restoration was accomplished using photos of the individual scenes on the layout and refreshing and repairing them.
Selected scenes of the layout are in the photo gallery found at the menu link above. We did install some additional trackwork as we
relocated some buildings to increase the visual realism of the layout.
The same basic principles were applied when the layout was relocated from Brookford to the Newton Depot Model Railroad Center.
The official
notice of relocation is at this link. The net result
is to present Wade's handiwork as accurately and completely as possible, while ensuring that the layout will operate reliably over a longer period
of time.
What Is Wade Warren's Story?
When Wade Warren retired from Coca-Cola in Hickory, NC in 1984, his family gave him a train set as a retirement
gift. As he
began working on it he expanded it until it got too large for his house. He then talked the
Aldermen in the Town of Brookford into
letting him use an empty room in the Brookford Community Center for the layout. Eventually the layout got too large for that room,
so he talked them into a larger room, where the layout resided
until its relocation to
the Model Railroad Center at the Newton Depot during the summer
of 2021.
Over the ten years between his retirement and his death, Wade's Train Town grew to an 18 foot by 22 foot work of art. It
contains not only the
280 buildings, but also thousands of 'little people', most of which he painted by hand, which populate his town.
As outstanding as all this may be, the truly amazing thing is that Wade built
most of his layout while confined to a wheelchair.
He worked on the layout almost every day and hosted hundreds of folks, from pre-schoolers to seniors, on visits to his empire.
The Carolina Southern Division is proud to
be involved in restoring and maintaining this layout for the continuing enjoyment of young and old
as a heritage layout.
Where Is Train Town Located?
As of October 2, 2021 Train Town has been moved to the Model Railroad Center at the Newton Depot and is currently open to the public each Saturday from 10 am until 4 pm. The address is: 1115 North Main Avenue, Newton, NC.
CSD Volunteer Layout Hosts Needed
CSD Members are urged to volunteer as hosts for the Train Town Open House events each Saturday. AP Volunteer Certificate points are available for each time you host. More information and sign up form is at this link.
