Ridin' the rails

Kids love trains. John Hemmings has lots of trains. Therefore ...

"I've already had children at the house to look at the trains," Hemmings said. "We'll have lots of visitors over Christmas."

Hemmings lives at Rock Barn Golf and Spa. He turned it into a premiere golf destination before selling it a few years ago.

What youngsters in his neighborhood want to see when they come to his house, however, is his extraordinary train layout.

"We have neighbors' and acquaintances' children from all over come to see the layout," Hemmings said, "especially at Christmas."

He's been collecting trains for about 20 years. Right now, Hemmings is running seven complete trains on a five-track layout.

The trains are models of real rail lines. There's the New York Central, the Milwaukee Road, Amtrak and what seems to be Hemmings' favorite, the Southern Crescent Limited.

He has four editions of the Crescent, two diesel and two steam. Of course, his layout runs on electricity.

He points out the Southern Crescent first.

"They're authentic," Hemmings says of the familiar (to people in the South) green locomotives with bright yellow lettering and the highly visible SR logo.

The railway is now Norfolk-Southern, and the streamlined green engines are gone.

They live on in Hemmings' giant layout.

He spent a lot of time on Southern trains in real life.

"I started riding trains when I was 14," Hemmings said. "I would go to New Jersey where my brother and two cousins owned a chain of burger restaurants. I worked there during the summers."

Hemmings would travel part of the way on Southern in his journeys from Mount Airy, where he lived as a teen, to Jersey. That was in the 1950s.

One of his most memorable trips was one winter when he'd gone north to work over the Christmas holiday.

"School would start after New Year's Day," he said, "but one year it started on Dec. 31. My father called and said, 'You have to be back in school — tomorrow.' He did not want me to miss school.

"So I got on the train that day. I got to Greensboro about 2 a.m. There were no more trains until the next day. The conductor gave me a ride to Highway 52."

It was about 3 a.m., and cold, when Hemmings hitched a ride to Rural Hall. He found a railroad crossing and stayed there until a bus came by.

"I jumped on the bus and told the driver to just slow down and I'd jump off in Mount Airy," he said.
The bus was an express going to Ohio.

"The driver said, 'Give me a dollar.' He stopped long enough for me to get off. I walked home, took a shower, ate a bite and caught the school bus at 8 a.m."

Hemmings' other train excursions were less harrowing. He's ridden trains all over, including England and Europe.

His favorite ride on the rails was from Austria to Switzerland over the Alps. He's still amazed at the trestles, tunnels and scenery from that trip.

The model layout in his basement is a portrait of 1950s and '60s America.

The airport on one end features Hemmings Motor News airline (He invented that himself). The plane is green, of course.

Circling overhead is an authentic Lionel Red Baron Pylon with the baron's red tri-wing Fokker chasing a French Spad from World War II.

The two villages are stained glass. One array of buildings connected to the airport is original Bill Job stained glass. The other is made up of vintage Coca-Cola accessories representing the 1920s, '30s and '40s.

Hemmings doesn't have a lot of "new" stuff. The trains and accessories are from yesteryear.

The rail yard is a beehive of activity with remote-controlled log loader, coal car and barrel station.

Along the routes is a water tower for the steam engines, gated crossings and even a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop. That's where the Highway Patrol and other law enforcement vehicles are parked.

The other end of the layout sports a carnival with a glittering midway.

Everything is animated and illuminated: The traditional Ferris wheel, the double Ferris wheel, bumper cars, Tilt-A-Whirl and sideshows.

Everywhere, something is moving, blinking or or zipping along the tracks.

There are several extra locomotives and train cars on shelves overlooking the main layout.

It's all operated from a central control station, but low-tech wooden poles with hooks are used to reach over the scenery if a car needs to be put back on the tracks.

Hemmings doesn't know how many miles of wiring run under the tables to get the power to the trains and villages. He uses a garage creeper to service the 500 feet of tracks from under the tables.

"This started out as a one-engine set under the Christmas tree," Hemmings said. "It grew to four by eight and now ... now there's no place to put anything else unless I make it bigger."

That means bigger than the 19 feet by 10 feet of table space he has crammed right now.

Hemmings doesn't have a special train or accessory. "I like it all," he said, although the number of Southern Crescent pieces seem significant.

The carnival has a Christmas theme, appropriate for this time of year.

It's also the season for lots of visitors. They come from all over, like the hundreds of items Hemmings has collected for all those trains.

He even has a bench so little tykes can watch without straining. It's one place the big kids — of all ages — can't obscure the view.