For James Gaulton, the Halton County Radial Railway Museum is a short ride from his Dundas home.
That suits the train lover just fine. Last Tuesday (Nov. 12), he was one of about 300 people who made a pilgrimage of sorts to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Rapido Trains Inc., a company that specializes in model trains.
“It’s excellent,” said Gaulton – who makes videos about all things model trains on his YouTube channel Junction Model R.R – about the celebration. “They’re (trains) fun to play with and build. You have the creativity of building the layout because you are not just taking a piece of wood, you are creating real life trains in a model size.”
Rapido Trains invited model train enthusiasts to their celebration of two decades in the business to come and discuss/explore all things train-related, be it models or the real thing.
The exclusive nomenclature of model trains was heard over the buzz of conversations across the museum. Many met friends of model train clubs, others made new ones, all were on board with the celebration.
Not the least of which was Rapido founder Jason Shron, also known as @JasonTheTrainGuy on Instagram. He willed the company into existence in 2004 at the age of 29 while, he says, he should have been focusing on his education.
“While procrastinating for my PhD, I started doing this model train thing on the side,” said Shron, decked out in a vintage TTC uniform. “I did not enjoy my career path because what I wanted to do was make model trains and the trains were my obsession.”
Feeling like there was no career in his British art history PhD, nor his Yale University fellowship, he longed for another pursuit. As luck would have it, Yale was not far from the Sikorsky Aircraft Archives. The famed helicopter manufacturer was also known for being one of the makers of Canada’s legendary TurboTrain – one of the fastest trains ever run on Canadian soil.
He had ridden the train in his youth and the proximity to the Sikorsky archives took him down a rabbit hole of research.
And so in 2004, he got the idea to start Rapido Trains Inc.
Twenty years later, he celebrated the milestone with his hobbyist tribe by riding the Railway Museum’s trains, eating cake and generally shooting the breeze with all who attended.
Two vintage Toronto streetcars were brought out for visitors to ride in and marvel at. But the highlight of the afternoon was taking a short trip on Toronto’s famed Red Rocket subway train. Many took turns at the front of the train snapping photos, no doubt sharing the experience with social media friends.
Rapido Trains also took the opportunity to unveil a new model of the TTC’s CLRV streetcar, which was phased out in the last decade and replaced by Bombardier’s Flexity Outlook cars.
“These (CLRVs) are the streetcars that Toronto bought in the late 70s to replace their 1940s and 50s era PCC cars. They just became one of the iconic symbols of Toronto,” Public Relations and Marketing Manager for Rapido Jordan Smith said.
The new train model, he told Milton Today, will be released sometime in 2025.