MASSILLON, Ohio — Two friends have turned their lifelong love of trains into a miniature backyard railroad, according to a wire service.
Tucked away in a wooded 5-acre lot behind Larry Volzer’s northeast Ohio home in Perry Township is a train that runs on nearly a mile of hand-laid track. Each train car is about 5 feet long and can hold two adults.
Volzer, 64, and his friend, Derald Kraft, 78, began building their Great Northern Ohio Massillon Eastern Railroad Co., which they call GNOME, in 1986 and are still making changes.
So far it features a covered bridge, nine engines and a warning signal at the crossing that intersects Volzer’s driveway. Smiling gnome statues can be spotted as the cars curve through the trees and over hills.
“We run it just to run it,” said Kraft, an electrical engineer. “I like to build stuff. I build engines in cars. I always had trains.”
Kraft said he remembers that as a child he would build train models out of cardboard.
Kraft “did the engineering expertise for seeing it was done right,” Volzer said. “I did the laying of the track and the buying of the material.”
Volzer has wanted to create a backyard train since 1959 when he saw the one his cousin, Clyde Blile, had built in Mentor. But it was not until 1985 when he bought his house that he had the time, the place and the money to do it.
As for the money aspect, “I figured if I could eliminate one new car in my life, it would take care of the railroad, and that’s about what happened,” he said.
Volzer and his wife, Kathy, ride the train to different parts of the yard to work on their garden or have an outdoor meal.
They don’t, however, open the track to the public.
“It’s not a public track; it’s a private hobby,” Volzer said, although he has let children in scouting groups or schools and a few church groups go for rides.
Volzer built the railroad simply because he enjoys it.
“Rather than going to ball games or playing golf or going down to the local tavern, I play with my trains,” he said.