Cranberry couple bids farewell to railroad display
CRANBERRY TWP — The Hoffman Railroad is pulling into its final station.
For 35 years, Frank Hoffman has set up his train layout that sprawls across his living room from Thanksgiving until the end of January. The 8-foot-by-30-foot layout rests on a plywood table supported by sawhorses and the family couches. The intricate setup contains trains, tracks, houses, a drive-in theater with moving pictures and sound, carousels, a roller coaster, tunnels, people, animals and vehicles.
The train set has brought pleasure to Hoffman’s sons, grandchildren and the classes from nearby Haine Elementary School who have made field trips to visit it.
But when Hoffman takes down the layout later this month and his wife, Joyce, gets her living room back, it will be for the last time.
Hoffman, a retired millwright at Neville Chemical Co. on Neville Island, said it was time.
“It’s hard to do,” said Hoffman. “My eyesight isn’t good. A lot of wiring is underneath, and it’s hard to bend down.”
So, when the layout is disassembled, the trains and all the related paraphernalia will be parceled out to his nine grandchildren.
It will be the continuation of a family tradition.
Some of the O gauge and MTH Railking trains were given to Hoffman by his father when Hoffman was a child.
“These trains were mine when I was a kid,” he said. “I did this with my father. My dad gave me all the trains he collected for me when I was growing up.”
He estimates some of his rolling stock is close to 100 years old.
Through the years, the layout, which changed every year, has gotten more elaborate.
Frank and Joyce have collected houses, vehicles and people and crafted much of the scenery themselves.
They said just buying scenes from hobby shops can be pricey. They learned to make trees from twigs and shredded sponges.
Thistles dyed green make excellent evergreen trees, they discovered.
“It’s expensive to buy stuff, but we both have good imaginations, so we can create things out of nothing,” Joyce Hoffman said.
Hoffman said he doesn’t go to train shows, but credits the staff at CT McCormick Hardware in Zelienople for helping him with repairs. And he got a repair manual to do the work himself.
And he’s traveled to Buhl Planetarium in Pittsburgh to see its O Gauge Miniature Railroad & Village.
“I talked to them and they took me into their shops,” he said. “They were very nice to talk to, very informative on how to do things.”
This final year, Hoffman made a realistic house fire out of cotton and tiny lights.
One visitor from the Haine school built the Duquesne Incline as a school project and donated it to Hoffman.
He recently added an eagle’s nest complete with eagle.
Clouds, an airplane and a parachutist (representing oldest son Bill, who wanted to sky dive at one time) float over the whole setup.
The tunnel the trains go through can be looked at from the inside. Viewers can go under the train board and see the tunnel’s interior.
This year, it looks like a cave complete with stalactites and stalagmites. In the past, the tunnel has held an aquarium with live fish, a dirt track, a scene from ancient Egypt and a village and its inhabitants made out of paper.
“We get lots of ideas from the kids,” said Hoffman, who added the aquarium came from them. “The drive-in theater was my sister’s idea.”
There is so much to see that Hoffman has made a list of some 57 items to try and spot in the layout.
Along with the glowing train display have come a growing number of visitors to view it.
Joyce Hoffman, who worked as a paraprofessional at Haine Elementary School, said class visits from the school started when a life-skills class visited to see the train display.
“They couldn’t go on field trips, but they could walk to the house,” she said. “It kind of mushroomed from that.”
The Hoffmans were getting visits from 400 students a year as well as visits from groups such as the Rotary and the Boy Scouts to see their handiwork.
“We’ve had people here from all over the place, really,” Hoffman said. “We’ve had people from Europe, from France, Japan, China come and see it.”
Boys and girls look at the display differently. Boys want to see those cars going and watch the sawmill dump logs onto a train car.
Joyce Hoffman said, “One girl said this lady needs a husband and carried her around the train board to find a husband and then walk them to the church and then find them a house to live in.”
Hoffman said he hopes the display can teach the young visitors a lesson.
“Use your imagination. Share and put a value on what you own. Think about what you have,” Hoffman said.
Taking down the display for the last time will be bittersweet, said Hoffman, although his wife said they will gain space in two closets, the attic and the garage when the trains are sent to their grandchildren.
And it’s brought the family together.
“The grandkids were very much involved knowing this was going to be the last year,” said Hoffman of this year’s setup.
