Tom Gillispie: Multi-track mind; a feature on train aficionado Jeff Miller

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Multi-track mind; a feature on train aficionado Jeff Miller

(NOTE: This article appeared years ago in a special section for the Winston-Salem Journal.)

MULTI-TRACK MIND

By Tom Gillispie

Special Sections Writer

Jeff Miller says he fell in love with trains long before he decided that optometry was the career for him. Miller was three in 1948 when his dad got him American Flyer trains that they set up in his bedroom. Then they switched to Lionel trains two years later.

"I've always been interested in trains," Miller said. "We'd ride trains twice a year; we rode the train to visit my grandparents in Baltimore and New York each year."

Miller's dad was an optometrist, and on Saturday his mother would take young Jeff to the office on Fifth and Liberty streets, and she'd help her husband for a few hours. Thus, Miller's second big interest was born.

"I picked up on what had to be done," he said, "because I had to go, too."

He came close to starting a career in radio broadcasting, but he wound up getting a bachelor's degree from Emory University in Atlanta and his doctorate from Pennsylvania College of Optometry in Philadelphia.

Now, Miller works at his office on Reynolda Road, and for fun he is interested in trains. In fact, there's a large painting of a Winston-Salem rail yard on the wall in his office.

Years ago, Miller helped start the Southbound Model Railroaders, named after the Winston-Salem Southbound Railroad, which traveled from here to Wadesboro. At one time, they held meetings at the Nature Science Center (now SciWorks), but they had to leave the science center, and Miller says it was his idea for them to build their 2,595-square-foot clubhouse at the South Fork Recreation complex on Country Club Road. The club leases the land from the city, but it owns the building, and about 1,200 square feet are set up with model trains and scenery.

Miller says the club sponsored train trips out of Winston-Salem — to sites like Asheville, Roanoke, Lynchburg, Raleigh, Charlotte and North Wilkesboro — from 1969 to 1993 to earn money to construct the building. The club members did much of the work on the building, which was completed in '93. Miller says they have no idea how much it cost, since some of the materials were donated.

The clubhouse hosts weekly meetings of the Southbound Model Railroaders and monthly meetings of the Winston-Salem chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Miller says the latter group will celebrate its 50th anniversary this May. He adds that he's nowhere near the oldest member of the historical society, but he has the greatest longevity in the club, since 1969.

The club has its projects. Miller says the club built a layout of the train yards in the North Carolina town of Hamlet, near Rockingham, and the layout was later moved to Hamlet.

Of the approximately 30 members in the railroaders club, perhaps 20 are senior citizens, Miller said. The oldest current member is 86-year-old Eric Bjork.

"He's a master carpenter who can do just about anything," Miller said.

Then there's nonagenarian Charlie Yaeger, who occasionally drives a motor home and returns to Winston-Salem from Atlanta. There have been women in the club, and current member Joan Jacobowsky helps with scenery, Miller says.

There's a father-and-son pair in the club, Frank and David Bounds. David, at around 20, is the club's youngest member, and, naturally, the Railroaders would like to add more youth to the club.

"A lot of members in their 70s are very active, doing electrical work and stuff," Miller said. "There's always something to do. I do a lot of electrical work and scenery."

Miller says that some of the club members are knowledgeable about models; others know about real trains. Miller is in both categories. He has a small train layout at home, and he keeps up with real trains. Want to know about trains in Forsyth County, Western North Carolina or this region of the country? Ask Miller; he'll probably know the answers.

In fact, he's one of the experts on the Winston-Salem Southbound Railroad; Jim Vaughn and Miller did research in the early '80s and later wrote a book about the railroad. The book, he says, wasn't meant to make money; it was a labor of love.

He knows about other train subjects as well. Get him started, and he'll explain how Winston-Salem "missed the boat" when it didn't become a train hub for the Carolinas. He likes to show off a photo of a steam locomotive that was used to help build a section of Interstate 40 in the 1950s, and he'll talk about how trains will alter the city in the future.

Miller was a consultant on the movie "The Color Purple," helping producers find sites for train scenes. They wound up shooting scenes in Albemarle. Miller says he met Whoopi Goldberg, a star of the movie, and had lunch with producer/director Steven Spielberg. He also helped a crew find a site for a Pepsi commercial; that was shot in Farmville, Va.

Miller says he only reads what interests him because of lack of time, but then he ticks off a half-dozen train magazines he reads. He says that he's one of the club members who attend train conventions around the country.

He says that the Millers have 40,000 slides of trains and hundreds of hours of film and videotape that they've shot over the years.

One has to wonder if there are train widows — like football widows — in the county, but Miller says that's not the case. He met wife Lois in her hometown of Philadelphia when he was studying optometry, and he says their dates involved working with a model-train layout in the upstairs at her family's home — "At least her parents knew where we were," he said with a smile.

When the couple married, they built a bigger layout. Later, the Millers' daughters, Leigh and Kacie, helped with the railroad club's train trips. And Miller likes to talk about Kacie, now living in China, taking a train trip from China to Tibet.

"All the wives are supportive of their husbands," he said, adding that the children are, too.

Why do people, particularly the seniors, join a train club?

"They like trains. They like the fellowship; we've all been together a very long time," he added.

He adds that being active in the clubs has been good for the members.

"If you stay active, you stay young," he said. "The one thing that the club does offer is that it's challenging for the mind, and it gives you something to think about. It's wonderful from the standpoint of the mind."

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