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Max Hartshorne, travel website editor, sharing some of the stuff I read, hear and see with you. Updated every day. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Model Trains and Sweet Pie in Foley Alabama

by Max Hartshorne on March 27, 2009


Foley has an attraction that fascinated me during our visit this week. It’s a complex and detailed array of O gauge model trains that is located inside a former train station downtown. The set up is a model train lover’s fantasy–sixty feet long, twenty-two feet wide, multilayered and full of neat little details like tunnels, a whole miniature town, and a bunch of freight trains and passenger lines. There’s even a little streetcar that rolls up and down the tiny town.

It’s all run by a team of train aficianadoes who wear engineer’s caps and control the animated displays and keep the trains rolling. At a miniature drive-in restaurant, tiny car-hops flit from car to car; at the scene of a fire, a ladder trucks roars to the rescue, up in the hills, a tiny still is in operation. Not only the visuals are here but there are sound effects the men can turn on, and our guide shined a light on the action as the fire raged and the carhops hopped.

The set up was donated to the town and in turn, Foley built a big building to house their new treasure. There’s also a history museum in the building that was the former train station.

After we enjoyed the model trains, we got a chance to sample some mighty fine pie at Sweetie Pie’s. I asked Tammy Mason, the boss, which pie was the most popular. Coconut creme, she said, pointing at one of gravity-defying slices.

But Southern Living magazine that her pecan pie was the best. She proffered a plate with three different pecan pie varieties for me to enjoy. How can you not love pie!?

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