MODEL RAILWAY PRESERVATION.

With the Walker's Point neighborhood of Milwaukee changing from a manufacturing district to a bedroom neighborhood for urban hipsters, the Model Railroad Club of Milwaukee, which has been home to model railroading pioneers and to vintage trains for years, has become a subject for human interest and local culture features.

The neighborhood has even gained a new identification, the "Harborview district," presumably to keep it distinct from Bay View further to the south.

The video is instructive as a history of control systems for model railroads, as the camera team recorded club members at the control stands, which are on what remains of the stairs that once led to track level, and that tape includes views of the controllers, old-school rheostats with geared handles, and the block selector switches.  Each freight or passenger car on the layout includes a resistor between otherwise insulated wheels, the better to shunt the track detection circuit that lets operators know where on the layout the train they're controlling is.  Trains are completely out of view of the operators when they're in the former baggage room now holding the main yard and engine terminal.

I wonder if a future generation of model railroaders will simply install onboard power on locomotives.  Heck, I wonder if replacement parts for those rotary switches, rheostats, and detection circuits still exist.