Changing trains in the mall

There's just something about trains. Especially model trains.

As they chug around the track, cruising through small villages and towns, puffing smoke from their stacks and pulling long lines of cars and cabooses, they light up the eyes of children of all ages.

"I've been messing with model trains since I was 7," Richard Ketcham said as he and other members of the Charleston Area Model Railroad Club continued to set up model trains at their new digs in Citadel Mall. "It's a very friendship- oriented operation."

Most of the gentlemen laying track and constructing make-believe towns are in their 70s and have been following this fascination with trains since they got their first sets for Christmas.

"People who walk in here just sigh and say they remember when," Ketcham said of the club's new store-front location just outside Dillard's department store. "That's where this has rung a very strong chord."

Changing malls

Indeed, a lot of things are changing at the mall.

The sluggish economy has created a new concept of what you might find in the typical retail mall today.

"We realized we have to do something different. It's not the status quo anymore," said Sam Billingsley, general manager of Citadel Mall. "So we started looking for some out-of-the-box opportunities."

That's how the model railroad club and the mall became best friends.

"They were losing their digs in North Charleston, we started talking, and we thought it would be a good public perception for us," Billingsley said.

It turned into a win-win situation for both parties. The club needed a place, and the mall needed something in an empty store that would generate foot traffic. Store hours are 5-9 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 1-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

"These guys are great," Billingsley said. "They're in their own little world. It's like they've been kids for the last 70 years."

Round and round

According to Ketcham, "It's the best thing that ever happened to the railroad club."

That's because they're now out in the public eye, where people can come in and browse with their kids. And there's nothing brighter than a child's face when he sees a model train.

You remember yours. I remember mine. It was a Lionel. Yours might have been an American Flyer. Remember those little white pills you dropped into the smoke stack to make the smoke? Now they use liquid. Kids had a tendency to eat the pills.

Here in the mall, you can talk to the club members about the old days when Southern Crescent and Burlington Freight were household names. Club member Ralph Wilkie is 79 and says his favorite train is the Crescent Limited, which ran from New Orleans to New York, right through his hometown of Greenville.

These are guys who can talk to you for hours about the difference between O-gauge and N-gauge and what it all means. Then there are the villages, bridges, tunnels and towns where the trains zip through a world of miniature still life.

Kids, however, just like to watch trains go round and round.

"A lot of people probably still have train sets in their attics," Ketcham said. "This reminds people of the fun they used to have with their model trains."