CHESTER, VIRGINIA — Dennis Zeiters wanted to recreate the 1960s-1970s-era of Shelby of his youth.
A 1971 graduate of Shelby High School, Zeiters attended The College of Wooster before heading south to Wake Forest Graduate School.
He lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for 16 years before moving to his current location of Chester, Virginia,
For nearly the last five years, Zeiters has been working on an HO scale railroad layout of Shelby, his hometown. It includes several of the city’s landmarks, buildings and businesses.
The former Cornell’s IGA Supercenter, Shelby Municipal Light Plant, Snowhite Cleaners, Napoli’s Pizza, Daily Globe and Ohio Seamless Tube Division, among others, are all included along the looping model railroad.
Wheels began to spin in 2020
When an upstairs bedroom at Zeiters’ home became empty, he realized the space necessary for a railroad layout was available.
Around the same time, COVID-19 began its spread across the United States.
“When you’re sitting around with not a whole lot to do, the wheels begin to spin in your head,” Zeiters said.
Deciding on an original track plan, the Shelby alum knew he wanted to create something which could travel in a loop — while also navigating obstacles such as a doorway, closet and a window.
Zeiters said this was the first early challenge of the current four-plus-year project.
“Once I had the track plan and laid the track, then you start thinking about, ‘Okay. What kind of buildings am I going to put in this thing to make it look realistic?'” he said.
Attention to detail
The first building kit Zeiters purchased and put together became a replica of the former Heck’s Rexall pharmacy.
While constructing the kit, he said the storefront reminded him of the former Shelby pharmacy building.
“I said, ‘Alright. I’ve got Heck’s Rexall. We’re going to do as much of the rest of Shelby as we can here,'” Zeiters said.
As the project progressed, he continued purchasing more building kits to customize — sometimes even combining two structures to shape a more accurate replica.
Not every building is a perfect match of how it looked during Zeiters’ youth, but the Shelby native’s attention to detail strives for as close of a match as possible.
Each building includes interior lighting.
He most recently finished a replica of the downtown Shelby Daily Globe building a couple months ago.
“I finally got a good picture of the old Daily Globe and I looked through and found something (a kit) that looked somewhat like it (building),” Zeiters said.
“I cut a few things here and there, painted it and I thought it turned out pretty well.”
As the layout has progressed, Zeiters said there’s not much room left for any new development — besides maybe scenery.
“That’s it with the buildings,” he said. “I’m pretty much at that point where I’m looking around and say, ‘There isn’t anything else I can really put in here.'”
Honoring ‘pillars of Shelby’
Zeiters was inspired by his father since childhood to work on creative projects, such as the railroad layout.
As time passed, he said the hobby “sort of went to the wayside” for a bit — until Zeiters bought his home in North Carolina.
“We had a giant room in the basement and I said, ‘I think I have a place where I can do my model railroading,'” he said.
The interest has stuck with Zeiters since, who now refers to the room with his current layout as “The Train Room.”
Two buildings on the layout — Snowhite Dry Cleaners and Bloom and Johnson Auto Sales — are particularly meaningful to Zeiters.
He wanted to recognize a couple of his good friend’s fathers, Gene Johnson, co-owner and operator of Bloom and Johnson Auto Sales and Karl “Bunny” Giller, owner of Snowhite Dry Cleaners.
“I especially wanted to do those (buildings) to sort of honor Gene Johnson and (Karl) Bunny Giller in the layout, because they were pillars of Shelby back in the day,” he said.
(Below are photos of Zeiters’ HO scale railroad layout of Shelby, Ohio. Images courtesy of Dennis Zeiters.)
