Don Sell has always had a creative streak.
An Upper Arlington resident since the 1980s, Sell graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in photography and cinema and spent more than two decades as a commercial photographer.
Now he’s spending his “semi-retirement” as president of the Central Ohio Model Railroad Club and as a fused glass artist and instructor.
Sell, 57, had a model train set as a child, but like many people, he outgrew it in his teenage years. It wasn’t until his son, Joshua, expressed an interest in model trains around age 10 that Sell got back into the hobby.
“I have a theory about how people get into and out of trains,” Sell says. “A lot of people start around ages 6 and 7 until 14 or 15 … when we lose them for awhile, until they have kids around that age. If they do come back, they’ll stay with us for the rest of their lives.”
That was certainly true for Sell, who remained fascinated with the models long after his son, now 34, lost interest. It fit well with his both creative and technical personality.
“I like working with my hands, so modeling is a good activity for me,” Sell says. Unlike some model train enthusiasts, who get so devoted to historical accuracy they’re called “rivet counters,” Sell builds his models with a little more imagination and idealism.
“I get around it by telling people I don’t model it how it was; I model it how it should have been,” he says.
The O scale model – the size of most “toy” model trains through the 1960s – in the basement of his home off Fishinger Road is based on the stretch of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track between Grafton and Clarksburg, W.Va.
But his own layout is small compared to the club-owned layouts the COMRC displays at various events, including the Ohio State Fair. The club
owns a medium-sized layout O scale, a room-sized layout with an HO (half of O) scale that runs in a loop, an HO-scale Thomas the Tank Engine train with controls that kids can operate, an unfinished N scale (half of HO) and a tiny Z scale (half of N).
Sell, currently starting the second half of his two-year term as club president, was one of the group’s founding members. Incorporated in 2002, the club was started by model railroad enthusiasts who knew each other through the National Model Railroad Association. The group, which has about 36 members, gathers Tuesday evenings at 7 p.m. – barring bad weather – to run trains and discuss pertinent topics. Many of the members’ children run trains at the beginning of meetings, and the adults close the rented facility in Worthington on Proprietors Road around 10 p.m. The club is on the lookout for a new location at which it can set up a more permanent layout.
“Our mission, really, is to … preserve the heritage of American railroading in the U.S.,” Sell says. “The majority of the towns in the Midwest and West were founded around the railroad.” He points out that trains are still important to the country today.
“Carrying intermodal trailers or containers on the trains keeps the truck traffic manageable on the interstates.”
The club’s other mission is to educate about train safety: don’t play on train tracks. Signs posted around the club’s tent at the Ohio State Fair give statistics about train safety and issue warnings. Visitors to the free display drop donations into boxes. The club gets the majority of its funding – other than club dues – from donations at such displays. From 2007-2009, the club had a set up at Wildlights at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Upcoming exhibits include a planned Christmas layout at the Ohio History Center, though details have yet to be finalized, Sell says.
Trains aren’t Sell’s only hobby; he also is an instructor for fused glass and stained glass classes at Glass Axis in the Grandview Heights area and Columbus Idea Foundry. A self-taught artist, he took up stained glass about 30 years ago and picked up fused glass, which involves melting different colors and textures of glass together in a kiln, as a way to kill time while away from his wife, Greta, on a temporary job assignment in South Carolina. In his classes, he teaches the basics of fused and stained glass, how to slump glass into molds and the creation of glass jewelry.
Together, the two hobbies take up the majority of his time and have provided him with a host of deep friendships.
“We have a lot of fellowship and camaraderie,” Sell says of the model railroad club. “For two hours, we suspend reality and we play with trains.”
Sell also enjoys spending time with his family, including Greta, Joshua, daughter-in-law Megan and a 6-month-old granddaughter.
Lisa Aurand is editor of Tri-Village Magazine. Feedback welcome at laurand@cityscenemediagroup.com.
