Day Trips

Little's shop of wonders (Photo By Gerald E. McLeod)

Harrold's Model Train Museum is easy to miss as you zip down the four-lane divided highway into Tyler. The modest sign in front of the little house wouldn't be helped much with a new coat of paint. It's worth turning around to go see the private collection of toys.

Inside what was once a small, four-room house are Harrold Little's most prized possessions. With the exception of the front room that serves as an office and gift shop, every room is stacked from floor to ceiling with Little's collections of model trains, toy cars, foreign currency, license plates, retired railroad equipment, and an assortment of other odds and ends.

A die-hard blue stater in a solid red state, he even has a political section in his collection. Maybe it was the 15 years that Little spent working in Austin at the Internal Revenue Service office that made him a liberal. Before that, he spent 21 years in the Air Force. He and his wife retired to Tyler to be near family in 1981. Eight years into his retirement, his first wife, the late Marcie Little, decided Harrold needed a hobby. She had no idea where the train set she got at a department store promotion would lead.

The menagerie keeps growing by leaps and bounds. By 1999, Little had amassed a collection of model railroad cars, engines, and cabooses that numbered roughly 1,700. Newspaper clippings from 2003 estimated he had more than 2,100 pieces. By January 2007, he guessed he had more than 2,500 items in his museum.

Soon after receiving the train set from his wife, Little started scouring flea markets and antique shops for buildings and vegetation to make his model villages. Along the way, he picked up collectible toys that caught his fancy. Living on a fixed income, he rarely spent much for the items for his collection. Some pieces, like the rare toy roundhouse, are on loan from another model train and toy enthusiast.

Little has assembled three villages with trains that whistle their way across bridges, through tunnels, and between houses. The newest diorama was designed by his new wife, Bessie, to resemble the mountains of her childhood. Each setup is surrounded by Plexiglas on a table at eye level for 2-foot-tall children. "Kids go crazy in here," Little says with a big grin. "They run from one display to the next and then back again."

Children of all ages enjoy reliving the memories that the grand collection of toys stirs. The oldest piece in the collection is a 1920 American Flyer engine. There is a model of the train from the Harry Potter series of books. Recently he had a grandmother visit with her grandson in tow. "I'm not sure which one of the two had the most fun," Little says with a twinkle in his eye.

A large part of the fun of visiting the museum is to have Little show you around and point out unusual items in the rows and rows of railroad cars neatly placed on the walls seven shelves high. It seems like each one has a story behind it. A natural-born storyteller, Little gets great pleasure in pointing out a particular car or toy, like the silver Burlington Zephyr that was made of cast aluminum in 1930.

Like any other collection, there is a lot to model trains that can easily escape the untrained eye. Little patiently explains the basics of the hobby. There are five popular sizes or gauges of model trains. The G gauge is the largest, and the Z gauge is the smallest. HO means it is half as big as the O gauge, and S gauge model trains are not made any more. Little can't make up his mind which size he prefers. "I like them all," he says.

Harrold's Model Train Museum is at 8103 U.S. 271 N. in Tyler about five miles off of I-20. He's almost always around the shop between 10am and 4pm. Give him a call at 903/531-9404, and let him know you're coming by to see the greatest collection of model trains in the state.

817th in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of "Day Trips" 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.