As an 8-year- old, Brian Ferencin developed his love of model railroading when he’d help his father set up a floor layout of two sheets of 4x8 plywood with a figure eight track layout. The family Christmas tree was placed in one loop and the HO scale Bachmann train set was set to run.

Today, the Fountain Hill native runs several trains over a 175-foot by 3.5-foot basement layout in the home he shares with his parents.

“Mom and dad also took me to the Coke Works to watch the coke be pushed out of the ovens into the railroad cars,” he remembers, further cementing his interest in model railroading.

He admits his “first layout was not the greatest,” and model railroading friends advised him to rip it all out if he wanted to do it right. Since then, those friends have helped him on everything.

The first phase took Ferencin and his friends six days a week and about 10 hours a day. That was finished in March 2023. The second phase was completed earlier this year using what is called ‘L’ girder construction. Most track is level, but some has 1.5 percent grade. Structures added to his layout are based on photos he takes and they are then built from those images.

The former tri-axle dump truck driver calls his set up the Fountain Hill Railroad (FHRR) in tribute to his hometown.

His self-constructed scenery shows things like deer in a clearing and a ranger station on top of a mountain.

He maintains track weekly with two days of track cleaning.

“Everything is set up like a real railroad,” he said.

He checks couplings to make sure they are level. He uses Trains & Lanes locally for his model railroading needs and occasionally orders supplies and equipment online.

The electrical system is mapped out in what he describes as his “layout bible.”

He chuckles when asked about maintenance on the home’s furnace, which is surrounded by the layout. When a new furnace was recently installed he had to remove one section of his display so technicians could do their work. He says their initial reaction wasn’t favorable.

At 175 feet long, his layout has 320 feet of track and he spent $2,000 on lumber to accomplish the expansion.

“Everyone who has helped me has a piece of this display,” Ferencin said and he thinks there will be future growth to his layout.

“Model railroading and constructing a layout of this size gives me a sense of accomplishment and pride,” he said.