GROWING UP at Hamilton's Crossing in Spotsylvania County, the soundtrack of Thomas Mills' youth was punctuated with the "whoosh" of steam locomotives and the "clackety-clack" of freight cars passing day and night.
Which is why it's no surprise that Mills, who now lives in King George, has for the past 15 years made collecting, displaying and researching trains and train-company paraphernalia his life's passion.
"It's something my wife, daughter and I have really gotten into in a big way," said the man with his own train museum-quality display in a specially constructed room on the second floor of his home. "We specialize in RF&P and Southern."
I first heard about Mills and his family's display a month or two ago by some local folks who were treated to a visit.
"You've got to see it," implored one of them soon afterwards. "It tops anything you'll see in a store or a museum."
She's right. In an long, narrow room specially set aside for the display, a table 25 feet long and 8 feet wide holds a miniature town and train display that's amazing in its detail.
Sure, there are train-track ovals, bridges, stores, houses, churches, restaurants, factories, schools and more, complete with parking lots, roads and even a cemetery full of tombstones.
But there are also hockey players and ice skaters--on a pond Mills made of epoxy, after more than two dozens trials to get just the right color for the water.
Not to mention sunbathers in chaise lounges, vehicles, picnic tables, a working car wash, a junkyard, a handmade gazebo and a working Ferris wheel.
And a waitress who roller-skates out at Mel's Diner to take the order of patrons in a red '57 Chevrolet.
It took Mills, retired from the Defense Department, nearly six months of work to build and mount the display. He handmade much of the town, using everything from plaster to slivers of shingles in the construction.
He's joined in his passion for the collection by his wife, Lillie, and daughter, Melanie Smith.
