(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."
EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com TWITTER: EDITORatWORK
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