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There's something irresistible about trains.

The railroad played an important part in the westward expansion of the United States, and the rail culture has become inseparable from our culture at large.

Few people know this better than model train enthusiasts, and it was that impulse that led Don Oeters and the Greater Cincinnati Garden Railway Society to create EnterTRAINment Junction, a venture that has resulted in the world's largest indoor train display.

The initial impulse, Oeters said, was for the members of his club and others to have a giant place to play and display the intricate model train lay-outs they've created, but the expense of doing so required a broader set of goals.

"I couldn't just rely on train buffs to keep it going, so by turning it into an entertainment center, I could go to the masses," he said. "So I bought the building on the idea that it might happen, and the idea just kept growing."

The train layouts were built by hobbyist volunteers, mostly from the Garden Railway Society, but model train buffs of all stripes have kicked in their time and effort. Altogether, some 130 volunteers worked countless hours on the display. A couple from Dayton, for instance, worked six months on a single bridge.

The volunteers, he said, try to be historically accurate in the displays as they travel through time from the early railroad period of the mid-1800s to the present. The buildings are based on photographs and prints from the appropriate era as the trains snake their way through Civil War camps and skyscrapers, the engines making the transition from steam to diesel along the way.

"It will always be a work in progress," Oeters said, as the volunteers will continually update the 25,000 square feet of display area.

"One of the genius things about this is that because of the mountains and the way the rooms are laid out, you're constantly walking around a corner to find something new," said Hamilton resident Dan Britt, who designed the American Railroading Museum, a 5,000-square-foot exploration of what railroading has meant to the history and development of the United States.

In designing the museum, Britt and his wife, Ruth, (who recently won the Excellence Award from the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums for creating "Freedom Sisters" for the Cincinnati Museum Center) went through a list compiled by the train club members that listed "everything that ever happened in the railroad world," Ruth said, and condensed it into five thematic areas, from a look at what the world was like before the railroad to its impact on contemporary culture.

"Before the railroad came along, cities and communities were almost like separate countries," Ruth Britt said. "Not only did they not interact with each other, they didn't want to in many cases."

"The other challenge was we had to appeal to both young children and railroad enthusiasts who take this all very seriously," Dan Britt said.

Britt, who is also an award-winning actor, not only called upon colleagues at the Museum Center to help fabricate some of the interactive displays, but also from the area theater community, giving some aspects a distinctly theatrical look. Each section, for instance, has a display that uses lighting tricks to change the look of a scene. For instance, to illustrate the fact that George Washington couldn't move his armies any faster than Julius Caesar could, the picture morphs from one to the other, both of them riding a horse.

CONTACT this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.