Dreaming of trains: In a Connecticut basement, Robert Carlo has recreated his childhood visits to Croton and its celebrated station and rail yard.

A model train buff since childhood, Carlo built a layout based on the Croton-Harmon station and rail yard of the early 1970s.

Entrance to Croton-Harmon station in the early 1970s/ Photo by Michael Balter

WATERBURY, CT— When Robert Carlo was a boy growing up in Connecticut and Michigan, he would often visit his great aunt and uncle in Croton-on-Hudson. Laura and Richard Beaumont, who lived on Crest Street, had raised Robert’s mother—also named Laura—and so this village on the Hudson River was a deep part of his roots.

The house on Crest Street overlooked the river, but also the Croton-Harmon station and its vast rail yard. The view from Crest Street is obscured by tall trees today, but back then young Robert had a clear view of it across Route 9. He loved hanging out at the station during the day. At night, when everyone else was sleeping, he would wake to the sound of train whistles blowing, jump out of bed, and run to the window to listen to what was happening down below.

Thus was born a life-long love of trains. Carlo began collecting model train cars and locomotives while still a boy. He took them with him wherever he lived. As an adult, he spent his working life in retail management, with stints at Caldor department stores and CVS. In 1994, he bought the condominium in Waterbury where he still resides.

He chose it for two reasons, he told us. First, his best friend was living next door. And second, it had a basement.

For the past 30 years, Carlo has been recreating the train yard of his youth in that subterranean space. Built on three levels, with the electrical connections largely hidden from view, the layout is 22 feet long and 16 feet wide, not counting a several foot long loop of tracks that continues into the laundry room through holes he cut in the wall to make it fit.

At age 65, Carlo is now retired. So he has lots more time to work on the model train layout. It is a constant work in progress. He now has about 1200 rolling stock and 130 locomotives, many of which he collected during the 1980s and 1990s, although he has some pieces that are 50 years old.

In control: Carlo runs all the trains from one console/ Photo by Michael Balter

All of the trains are controlled by one console. But Carlo has done more than just lay down track. Over the years, he has recreated the rail yard and Croton-Harmon station as they were in the early 1970s, painstakingly reconstructing the massive old rail maintenance buildings (see upper left in photo below.)

He never had any doubt what station he wanted to model.

“I knew I wanted to do Croton,” Carlo told us. “I wanted to get Croton into the basement.” He used old photos from books and magazines, plus ones he found at train shows, along with personal site visits to get the lay of the land.

While the Chronicle’s reporter was the first person from Croton to visit Carlo and his train layout, he is not entirely unknown in our village. He is a member of the Croton Friends of History Facebook page, and regularly posts photos of his setup in that group. They are highly popular.

The layout takes up all of the space in his basement. Visitors have to duck under part of it to get to the viewing area, where Carlo has placed several chairs. But while some have suggested to him that he should have tourists and school groups come and see the trains, Carlo is dubious. There is not enough space for more than a few people at a time.

Carlo has lots of plans to upgrade his train layout. He has started installing electric switches, and, with the help of Model Memories, a company that caters exclusively to modelers of New York City electric railroads, he is installing third rails as well.

Why does he do it? Where does the passion come from?

Robert thinks back to the time he spent with “Aunt Laura and Uncle Rich,” sitting on their front porch listening to the whistling trains.

“I am recapturing a happy time in my younger days,” he said. “A lot of train modelers are actually remodeling their youth.”

Croton-Harmon station with rail yard in the background left/ Photo by Michael Balter

Photo by Robert Carlo

The old view from Croton’s Crest Street/ Photo by Robert Carlo

The Beaumonts’s house on Crest Street, today much altered/ Photo by Robert Carlo

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