North Stonington - Aside from the Jesus-themed artwork on the walls, everything else filling the community room in the Third Baptist Church relates to model trains.

Recent copies of magazines like Model Railroader and Railfan and Railroad were available. And multiple control panels full of switches and wires were erected to run trains around a network of tracks that crisscross one another in a rectangular space that, at 42 feet long and 16 feet wide, fills the room.

”It's a hobby,” Jim DeLany of Norwich said of the Mohegan-Pequot Model Railroad Club's annual Model Train Christmas Spectacular, which they spent seven hours assembling Saturday.

”Some people are into golf,” DeLany said, recalling former coworkers who spent all their spare time comparing courses and clubs.

”But from my perspective,” said North Stonington resident Larry Southwick, picking up his friend's train of thought, “walking around in the rain to hit a little ball in a hole seems silly. There's a lot of technology here.”

”It's accomplishing something when you start with just raw lumber and you build something that works,” Southwick said.

There are buildings, forests, bodies of water and even a 1-inch tall portable toilet resting beside a building. Giving the trains and tracks scenic context, it all evokes Connecticut in autumn during the early 1950s scaled to 1/87th of its actual size. And it was all built lovingly by hand.

Club members said at least 50 people came to see the display Monday and Tuesday, but things were quieter on Christmas Eve. This is the first year the club has assembled a setup in North Stonington.

Southwick, who hosts a weekly club meeting at his house, estimated the total price of the materials in the church to be about $25,000. The club's supplies fill his basement. Club members - there are 54 - take field trips together to observe trains and infrastructure throughout the country.

The Mohegan-Pequot Model Train Club's members will next showcase their skills at the Railroad Hobby Show in West Springfield, Mass., at the end of January.

The train display at the Third Baptist Church, 5 Rocky Hollow Road, is open from noon to 5 p.m. from Dec. 26 through Dec. 31 and then again on Jan. 2. Admission is free.

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