All Aboard the Club Car : Hobbies: Train-lovers have built a miniature railroad system at Angels Gate Park in San Pedro. Some enthusiasts became interested as adults, while others say it has been an obsession since childhood.

Like the rest of the guys in his club, George Johnsen has this thing about trains. He loves to ride them, watch them, hear them.

Unfortunately, having a train of one’s own isn’t very practical. Trains are expensive, for one thing, and of course parking would be a problem. Then there’s all that track you’d have to lay if you wanted to take your train anywhere.

So Johnsen and his train-loving pals have done the next best thing to having their own trains. They have their own miniature trains--an entire miniature railroad system, in fact. It’s called the Belmont Shore Lines, and it runs in the top floor of an old Army barracks at Angels Gate Park in San Pedro. They say it’s the biggest tiny railroad of its kind in the nation.

And this weekend the people at the Belmont Shore Model Railroad Club are inviting everyone in to see it.

“It’s like creating an alternate world,” says Johnsen, 38, as he stands next to the vast model railroad system that replicates portions of the Southern Pacific line from Los Angeles to Bakersfield. “Sometimes I think I have 1/160 scale alter ego. I actually see myself riding on that train.”

The display is like a world in miniature--specifically, “N-scale,” or 1/160 scale, meaning that one inch in the model equals 160 inches in real life. There are 350 feet of tiny track that wind through hills and valleys constructed of quick-drying plaster, including a replica of the famous Tehachapi Loop, where trains trying to gain elevation wound around a hill and wind up crossing over themselves. Rolling along these rails are 100-plus car miniature trains pulled by replicas of steam engines and diesels. There are also tiny houses with tiny laundry hanging from tiny clotheslines, tiny trees, cars, churches and even tiny bums.

Much of this was painstakingly handcrafted over two decades by the members of the Belmont Shore Model Railroad Club, who range in age from 8 on up. The detail is in most cases authentic, although Johnsen says that excessive nit-picking about details is not condoned.

“No rivet counters allowed,” he says. In the jargon of model railroading, a “rivet counter” is an individual who, if a full scale railroad car had 10,000 rivets, would insist that the N-scale version also have 10,000 rivet marks. In other words, a rivet counter is a pain in the neck.

The Belmont Shore Model Railroad Club started in 1971, when a group of model railroad enthusiasts got together in the Belmont Shore Library in Long Beach to talk about building an N-scale model railroad. Soon thereafter the club members started building a railroad layout in the back room of a Long Beach hobby shop, portions of which are still part of the club’s railroad display. Several years and a couple of moves later, the club wound up in the old barracks in Angels Gate Park, formerly Fort MacArthur.

Altogether the club has spent thousands of dollars, and thousands of hours, constructing the vast layout, which is jointly owned by the club members. (The N-scale trains they operate on the layout are individually owned; engines can cost $120 or more apiece, while regular cars range in price from $5 to $12 or more.)

Now club members converge from all over Southern California on Tuesday nights and Saturdays to run their trains and continue construction on the layout--replacing a downed tiny tree here, splicing a broken tiny telephone line there, laying in new tiny track. In the model railroad layout business, the work is never completely done.

For some of the club members, interest in model railroading began at an early age, when mom and dad gave them a Lionel train set. Some let the model railroading urge lie dormant during their teen and young adult years before taking up the hobby again; others never lost their interest in creating small worlds filled with rolling stock. Still others started the hobby as adults.

“I got a train set from my parents when I was 3,” says Craig Ross, 24, of Palos Verdes, who’s been with the club since he was 12. “I guess there’s just sort of primal fascination with trains.”

“My wife gave me an N-scale train set for Christmas in 1969,” says Chuck Short, 44, of San Pedro. “It all started from that.”

And does his wife now think that she created a monster?

“No,” he says. “Yeah, I’ve spent a lot of time and money. But at least she knows where I am.”

“My dad bought me a Lionel set when I was a kid,” says Jerry Schamahorn, 51, of Huntington Beach. “I guess I just never grew up.”

“It (model railroading) isn’t really an obsession,” Johnsen says. “It’s just a love of trains.”

Johnsen pauses for a moment and then adds, “Well, OK. I guess it is an obsession.”

Anyone wishing to share the model railroading obsession, or just take a look, can attend the Belmont Shore Model Railroad Club 21st Anniversary Open House and Benefit, to be held Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Building 824, Angels Gate Park, 36th and Gaffey streets, San Pedro.

A $1 contribution for individuals and $2 for families is requested, with all proceeds going to the Angels Gate Park General Fund. There will also be a model railroading contest and an auction. For further information, call Jesse Munoz at (310) 547-4977.