For John Gibson, being a model railroader isn’t simply putting track sections together, slapping on a transformer and running a locomotive in a circle; it’s a pastime that brings like-minded members of the community together in celebration and recreation of history.

Gibson is a Fountain Hills resident who, with his wife’s consent, built a 7x13 ft. enclosed room in his garage bay, just enough space to fit his lifelong hobby of building a model railroad.

As a boy, Gibson’s interest in trains came in part from his father, Billy Ray Gibson, an avid train chaser who would follow trains for miles along long stretches of highway with his Super 8mm video camera. Billy and his late brother, Steve, grew up in Itmann, W.Va., a coal mining town with a population of roughly 200 before they later moved East to Norfolk, Va.

“My uncle’s the one that motivated me because he had a model railroad when I was growing up,” Gibson said. “My uncle had actually worked for the Virginian [railroad] back East…and I said, ‘Well, this is going to be a model of the Virginian railroad in honor of my uncle who passed away many years ago and my dad.’”

In his Fountain Hills garage, Gibson methodically chooses only pre-1957 replicas of the Virginian to honor the time when his uncle worked on the rail. A familiar coal mine will sit near the trains with tracks running between West Virginia and Virginia to depict the various chapters in the lives of his dad and uncle. After three years working on this “extremely part-time” activity, Gibson says there’s still quite a bit more work to be done.

“There’ll be a pier over here and this will look like water eventually,” Gibson said, holding a clipboard detailing every plan that will soon materialize in his garage. “If I can find a model, there’ll be a ship parked here because they would bring coal down to this ship, put it on the ship and it’d be shipped all over the world out of little Itmann, West Virginia.”

Gibson uses cork bed for the base of the railroad and sprinkles grains of sand and rock to make it come to life. Railroad-crossing signs and Virginian logos hang on the walls of the train room, a pair of heavy, cast-iron rail tongs hang from the rafters and a window peering into the dreamy Americana landscape opens to the street.

“I built the end of this with a window and some stairs so the neighborhood kids can come check it out,” Gibson said. “I want to educate people about what I’ve got here.”

As his project grows, Gibson looks forward to hearing from other local train enthusiasts who are interested in meeting occasionally to discuss model railroading, sharing new ideas and maybe helping each other on their model railroads.

“Maybe there are people that don’t know as much as me, I can help them. The ones that know more, I can learn from them,” Gibson said. “I’m hoping that there are some other guys in town like me, and that’s what I’m hoping this story draws out.”

As an ode to the past and a hope for the future, Gibson has been hard at work with his grandson, Lennox, a fifth grader at McDowell Mountain Middle School, building miniature model railroad structures and bench work.

Gibson hopes to instill in Lennox the joy of working with one’s own hands, honoring those who have passed and spending quality time with loved ones who are still among us.

Together, Gibson and Lennox built an old, dilapidated house that is meant to serve as the neighborhood haunted house.

“I told him that I would have a section (even though it’s not realistic) where there’s a couple dinosaurs coming at the train as they go by,” he said. “So, part of it is real, based on my dad and my uncle’s life, and then there’ll be this fantasy section, too.”

For local train enthusiasts looking to connect with like-minded folks, give Gibson a ring at 480-231-3896.