LOS ANGELES -- It’s the 80th Anniversary of Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. To celebrate, the Del Oro Pacific, a model train society, is assembling a ‘G’ scale train set.

“That got it,” said Dave Acevedo as he tightened a bolt.

Running approximately 120 ft inside the main waiting area, this miniature railyard will feature trains dating from the modern era and all the way back to the Civil War. 

Long time member Dave Acevedo has been into model trains since he was in high school.

“I’m not quite sure what initially led me to it, but again I was always fascinated with the early steam and the motions of the wheels and the gears that went around and those kinds of things,” said Acevedo.

A life-long tinkerer, his model train collection grew once he retired from IBM fixing typewriters, photocopiers, and then computers. 

“I’m a big fan of research, so anything I don’t understand, I need to know how it works, so I became fascinated with steam engines and how they were operated on railroads and so I tend to model early steam, 1840s to the 1860s,” said Acevedo.

“Hey, that’s a $1,000 engine there!” yells a passing model railroader at Acevedo as he fiddles with the engine.

But Union Station has come a long way since steam. First opening in 1939, it’s regarded as the last of the great train stations and there’s soon going to be some new changes. They’re redoing the entrance, creating walking areas, and there’s even a new transit bike hub.

Thankfully for Acevedo, it’s a lot easier and a lot more fun to make a model train set than it is to rebuild Union Station, but he does enjoy the build.

“If we want something, we end up making it ourselves,” said Acevedo. “Painting it in the colors of the railroad we want rather than buying it off the shelves and running it.”

All aboard!