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It's Sunday afternoon; it's hot. Where are you? At the lake? Swimming? Fishing? Having a beer in the backyard? Starting up the barbecue?
Well, if you were members of the extended Stus family, you were disassembling the work of a much-loved father, grandfather and uncle, Peter Stus who died January 8, 2001. Very few people knew what the little house at 510 O'Brien held. And now that Peter is gone, something had to be done with the magnificent obsession of Peter's later years. It was a train set, but what a train set. He started working on it in 1992 when he found out that he was going to be a grampa. It grew over the years to fill the entire space of his dining room and then spilled over into the living room of his tiny bungalow. It is an incredible thing to see, speaking as it does of one man's enduring love of the railroad. |
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Peter had worked for CN for more than 35 years. He briefly left the railroad to work at the mines but found that mining was not in his blood. He soon returned to the rails for the rest of his working days. When he died earlier this year, his family knew they would face a challenge when it came to dealing with the train set. That day came on Sunday July 22nd, another in the seemingly endless string of brutally hot, muggy days that we have endured this summer.
Corinna and Roman Zygmunt with Ryan and Tyler, Sid Stus and Gwenda Mosbeck, and Jack and Jodi Bailey took on the job of cleaning up the house and readying it for sale. A yard sale on Saturday moved a lot of stuff. Sunday was set aside to disassemble the train set and move it to the Atikokan Mining Attraction for display. |
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The set is 13 feet long and 6.5 feet wide. Thankfully standard door size is 6 feet 8 inches, so no door jambs had to be removed. It has two levels of track and wire painstakingly glued to telephone poles. Pounds and pounds (kilograms and kilograms for those metrically inclined) of little stones that lined the tracks had to be shopvac-ed before the assembly could be turned on its side to move it out of the house. The weight of the bare structure was estimated to be between 75 - 85 lb. Roman, Sid and Jack screwed long 2x4 supports to the underside of the structure so they could turn in on its side without it bending or breaking. Out the front door, around, up and over the hedge, and on to the double snowmobile trailer it went. A convoy of three trucks made its way slowly down O'Brien to the Mining Attraction. |
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Gwenda had drawn a sketch of the lay-out of the buildings so that they could be replaced in accurate locations in their new home at the AMAA. Many of the accessories had been hand-made by Peter and included dried butterflies, a dragon fly, real robin's eggs, a roundhouse, a replica of Peter's cabin with a woodpile and a chopping block with a hand-made metal axe and crosscut saw, plus other wonders too numerous to mention. There is also a wonderful replica of the Atikokan railroad station, the first thing the miners and their families saw as they stepped off the train as they came to work at the mines and settle in Atikokan. Some just turned around and got right back on the next train; others stayed a lifetime.
The re-assembly was as much of a challenge as the disassembly was, taking all hands. They started at noon on Sunday and worked non-stop till 9:00 pm – a full day's work. The set will be on display at the Mining Attraction. You are invited to stop by and see it. |
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You just never know what interesting hobbies people have behind closed doors, or in their basements. This train set is a testament to the commitment of one man to remember and have fun with his memories of the railroad in Atikokan.
The Mining Attraction thanks the Stus family for allowing us to display the set. We will display it proudly. |
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| Randy Thoms of Thunder Bay Television paid a visit to the Mining Attraction to film this newest display and to talk to members of the Stus family about their father's magnificent obsession. |
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