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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Sunnyvale resident Dave Grenier has worked as a volunteer at the South Bay Historical Railroad Society Museum located at the Santa Clara Depot for the past 13 years. The lantern that he's holding is an old Southern Pacific kerosene handlantern.
Trainspotter
Sunnyvale's Dave Grenier owns and operates historic train museum
By Daniel Hindin
As a boy growing up in Hillside, New Jersey, Dave Grenier lived alongside the local railroad. He would sit up in the wee hours of the night to watch the late trains pass through the darkness. At the age of 5, he got a hold of his first model train set, and the rest, as they say, is a railroad romance made in heaven.
Grenier, who graduated from Fremont High School in 1965 and still makes his home in Sunnyvale, estimates he spends 90 percent of his time within 100 yards of train tracks.
"I work, live and play around--but not on--the tracks," he says proudly. "It's something that gets into your blood, and it just doesn't go away."
Grenier joins many longtime locomotive lovers most Saturdays at the historic Santa Clara Railroad Depot to "sit out all day and watch the trains go by." About 75 of these boxcar buffs make up the non profit South Bay Historical Railroad Society.
The society's charter states they aim to "preserve railroad heritage while running a working museum to benefit the community." They have a 10-year lease agreement with local authorities, in which the society agrees to perform preservation and renovation on the 138-year-old depot in return for museum space.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
The South Bay Historical Railroad Society Museum has N and HO scale--seen here--trains that run on extensive and detailed track layouts, all run by computers and radio control.
The depot, built during the Civil War, is the oldest continually operating station in California and the fifth oldest in the entire United States.
The museum exhibit sits in a rickety wood paneled room that is no longer used for railroad operations. As visitors climb onto the raised platform and enter the exhibit, they are overwhelmed by the strong smell of old wood. The exhibit houses all kinds of historic railroad paraphernalia: outdated metal signs, worn conductor hats, faded photos, dozens of rusted lanterns, giant spittoons--some dating back to the 1870s. The old baggage room is now a library.
A black and white "wig-wag" signal with a red flashing light is used to call society meetings to order. Grenier says children get a real kick out of ringing the ancient-looking bell hanging from the ceiling,
Visitors are soon drawn to the next room by the sound of chugging model trains. Several hundred feet of track--equal to 20 scale miles--wind their way around the long, skinny room wrapping around make-believe towns and through plaster mountain peaks.
Members of the society continuously add on to the tracks. Most are made of plastic, store-bought equipment but some represent the personal touch that members have the opportunity to leave in the old depot.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Dave Grenier works on getting one of the museum's trains running by working on the complex wiring.
Grenier, a computer systems analyst for most of the week, dedicated 100 hours of his free time to hand building a portion of the model. He meticulously laid 500 tiny pieces of matchstick-sized wooden strips to custom fit part of the track.
That kind of attention to detail epitomizes the society members' love of their hobby and their museum.
"A lot of people think this stuff is just for kids," Grenier says, noting that the median member age is around 40. "But it can be whatever you want it to be. Some members don't even run trains--they just like the history. We're all interested in different things, and we work together to achieve a lot. We put our sweat and blood in place of rent. There's so much involved in what we do here. There's photography, geography, archeology, carpentry, electronics, computers, historical research, engineering, art."
The SBHRS museum is located at 1005 Railroad Ave. in Santa Clara. The museum is open Tuesdays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information on the museum or how to become a member, send an email to info@sbhrs.org or call 408.243.3969. Visit the SBHRS on the web at www.sbhrs.org.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
