All Aboard!
Never too old for cars & trains
By Isabelle Southcott
Fathers like playing with toys just as much as children do.
Just ask Dan Parsons. The toys he plays with are a whole lot bigger (and more expensive) than the toys he used to play with as a kid growing up on the back side of Cranberry Lake.
But Dan loves race cars and trains just as much today as he did when he was a boy.
"I've been interested in trains since I was three years old," says Dan. "I remember going to Vancouver with my dad when he was buying a piece of equipment and this big steam locomotive went racing by. I've always had a passion for trains and an interest in steam."
Dan and his wife Linda live on an acreage in Paradise Valley. Between and around the fenced pastures and paddocks where horses graze, he's laid 1,500 feet of train tracks for his model trains.
Dan started building his model railroad three years ago. First came the small loop by his house. "Now I'm working on a track that goes around the back of my property. Eventually I'll have four or five thousand feet of track here."
Dan wanted to build a model railway for many years but he just couldn't find time between running his own business, Quality Parts and pursuing his other passion, drag racing, which keeps him hopping from April to September. He's currently rated #2 in one series and #3 in another. "In the last 10 years I've always been in the top ten and I've won several championships," he told Powell River Living.
But something about model trains kept calling Dan. "There's something about live steam. When you see a locomotive running it's like its alive."
There are over a dozen model train parks in BC. Last year Dan went to a model train park in Chiloquin, Oregon. At 24,000 acres, it's the biggest of its kind in the world. It has 30 miles of track. At top speed, model trains travel eight miles an hour so it takes a long time to cover 30 miles. Dan met people from all over the world at the park. "There were about 1,200 people and 250 locomotives."
Model trains come in three different sizes but one and a half inch, which Dan has, is the most popular.
"Here's my steam locomotive," he says. "It's exactly identical to a real locomotive in every dimension. These locomotives were used all over Vancouver Island for the logging and lumber industry."
He has built ride-on cars, a hopper car, a gondola and a flat car for his railroad. His mother in law chuckles, "Between horses and horse-power, I don't know," she smiles.
But the half dozen horses on the property don't seem to mind when the model train chugs its way past their paddock. They might whinny and kick up their heels but they settle just as soon as it has passed.
"I've pulled eight people with this little steam locomotive," says Dan.
Model trains are more popular than you might think. Children and adults enjoy riding on them at train parks but you need someone who knows what they are doing to operate the steam locomotive. "It's very busy to run," says Dan. "Generally, you have to have an engineer and a fireman to run one. The bigger they are the easier they are to run and the boilers have to be recertified regularly."
As far as Dan knows, he's the only one in Powell River who does this sort of thing. In the late 1930s or early 40s a one inch scale locomotive was built and ran on tracks at Willingdon Beach. That locomotive is located at the Powell River Museum. "It's a gorgeous piece. It was built with a gas powered lathe on a float cabin on Powell Lake."
Museum coordinator and archivist Teedie Gentile says that locomotive had a flat deck on it and used to pull children around Willingdon Beach.
Dan built his own tracks and train cars. He bought a second hand steam locomotive but is building another one that's bigger.
"I don't have time for watching TV," laughs Dan.
He first began working with engines as a 12-year-old. "I'm a body and parts guy, that's my main ticket.
But he knows machinery. How to fix it and how to build it. Good thing too. "This thing runs on 100 PSI. You almost need an engineer's ticket to run it!" he says. "The average steam locomotive is 2/3 running time and 1/3 maintenance. That's why they moved away from locomotives."
And with that he's off. Choo Choo! Choo Choo!
Choo Choo! A blast of steam escapes from the shiny black locomotive and the four cars its pulling follow it around the bend. Choo Choo! Dan Parsons is the conductor of his own model train and he's having just as much fun driving his own train as he had playing with a smaller train when he was a young boy.
