SLIPPERY ROCK — You might as well call Slippery Rock University President Robert Smith “Conductor Smith.”

Casual observers may not notice it, but Smith has had an interest in model trains since childhood.

“Everybody who has a hobby makes a decision as to how overly committed they are to it,” Smith said.

Smith said there are three kinds of model train enthusiasts — collectors, those who like to create exact replicas and those who like to build “fantasy railroads.” Smith is in the third category.

When he builds a model, he said he likes to tell a story. Smith said he tries to put in a lot of details that are not noticeable at first.

“I want people to look and then say, ‘Wait a minute, there's something funny going on,' or, ‘There's something unusual going on there,'” Smith said.

Additionally, he likes to name buildings in his models after people he knows.

Smith's interest in trains began when he was in ninth grade. A major snowstorm in Kansas, where he grew up, closed his school for a week.

With nothing else to do, he walked to the hobby store two blocks from his house and bought a model train set.

“It was just something I thought would be kind of cool,” Smith said.

After that, he tinkered with model trains occasionally, but did not do anything too serious. He built his first larger layout when he was a faculty member at Wichita State University in Kansas.

Later, he moved to Tennessee. He tore his layout down and his models stayed in boxes for 12 years. He had no place to set them up.

In 1999, he moved to Center Township after he became the provost at SRU. His house had a large, unfinished basement, which let Smith build a new layout.

“That was the first time where I had a serious layout,” Smith said.

The layout was 10-feet-by-20-feet and had multiple elevations.

“You just got the feeling that you were really in this world,” Smith said.

When Smith became SRU's president in 2004, he had to move to the president's house on campus, which he said does not have enough room to support a big train layout. Additionally, his new position did not leave him with enough time to work on his trains.

The grand layout took three years to build and 30 days to tear down. Now, his models sit in 14-foot lockers stacked up in his house.

“People were aghast,” Smith said, when he told people he was tearing the setup down.

Despite not being able to have a layout, Smith has kept up with the hobby, occasionally buying model pieces on the Internet.

“If I saw something and the price was right, I'd go get it,” Smith said.

Smith said he goes to train shows once a year, every other year. When he goes, he particularly enjoys talking with craftsmen who make model components.

“It's just a different, different world. And they're fascinating people,” Smith said. “Some craftsmen do things ... where you go, ‘Man how can he do that?'”

At one train show, Smith saw a man from West Virginia who had decals with the logos of different colleges, including SRU, along with boxcars in “G scale.”

“I just thought the boxcar was so cool that I bought it,” Smith said, noting that he does not work with models in that larger scale.

Smith bought the decals, the boxcar and two pieces of track to set the car up on. He displays the model in his office.

Despite his passion, his wife, Ramona, does not share it. Smith said the two of them tolerate each others' differences in recreational activities as any good married couple would.

“For every train show, I get to go to a quilt show,” Smith said.

Smith announced in April that he will retire early in 2012.

Smith and his wife have bought a house in Franklin, Tenn., to live in after he retires. There, Smith will build a new layout in the basement. His plan is to have the layout be 6 by 40 feet.

“That's going to be my life in retirement,” Smith said. “Creating my own fantasy world, somewhat different from the fantasy world I'm living in now.”