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Lifelong train lover builds a caboose in his Hollywood backyard
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by REID SILVERMAN
Charles Johnson, 65, has been in love with trains since he was a young man growing up in Sandy Bottom. He has built a caboose replica in his backyard in Hollywood atop real train tracks.
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Some people build model trains and miniature towns for them to circle. Charles Johnson of Hollywood built a train caboose in his backyard to house his model trains.
At first glimpse, it appears an actual caboose sits on 100 feet of train tracks in his backyard off Brown Road. The railroad tracks, ties and spikes are real, but the caboose is Johnson's own creation.
Johnson, 65, started work on the replica in January 2008 and has been incrementally piecing it together ever since. "Everything's hand-built. Everything's wood and PVC," he said. "From a distance, it looks real."
The train car's wheels are actually large wooden cable spools painted a rust color.
"I love trains, I always have, I always will," he said.
The love affair began when Johnson was a young man growing up in the Sandy Bottom area of Hollywood. When he was about 10 years old, he remembers, the train that then ran to Patuxent River Naval Air Station would come by daily between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The track was about 50 feet behind his house on what is today's Mervell Dean Road, then the main stem of Route 235. On the way to St. John's School, he would sometimes walk up the train tracks, which were where the northbound span of Route 235 is now.
John Wilkinson's store and bar was where the Dew Drop Inn is now and the train's attendants would sometimes stop there, Johnson said. On some occasions, the crew would bring children aboard for a quick ride up to St. John's and back on the track. It was a small train, just four cars for hauling freight to the Navy base, "but it had a caboose on it," he said. "I'll never forget it, something stuck with me … It just impressed me."
Johnson retired in August after 22 years with St. Mary's County government working as an inspector with the land use and growth management department.
He could have built a shed as he headed for retirement, he said, but decided instead, "I'm going to build me a caboose."
He got the train tracks from Lewie Aldridge Jr., who bought property in Hollywood that had a pile of track there along with other junk. It was said the tracks were from Patuxent River Naval Air Station when the Navy used the train to bring in materials. They are 54 inches wide. Each of the eight pieces is 33 feet long and Johnson hauled them out with his crane truck.
The exterior of the caboose is done, but Johnson needs to weatherproof the interior, add insulation and strengthen the floor. The goal is for the caboose to house a long model train scene that children can come and visit during Christmastime. He might be ready for Christmas 2010.
Ahead of the caboose on the track is a functioning traffic signal.
Behind the caboose are railroad crossing signs.
There is also the large concrete post that served as a milepost 33 miles from the track's start in Brandywine. It used to be at the Dillow house in Hollywood at St. John's Road and Route 235.
He has mailbox trains, birdhouse trains, and framed pictures in his house of trains. His tombstone at St. John's cemetery has a steam train etched onto it. "I go to train shows, four a year," he said.
His late daughter tried to get him an actual caboose from Virginia, but she was killed on Oct. 1, 1992, when she was 27. Her name was Rose Emory and she was killed when an F/A-18 jet crashed onto a truck she was driving at Pax River. She was filling in for someone who was sick that day, Johnson said. Most of the pickup truck was undamaged by the crash. "It was right where she was sitting," he said.
Most modern trains don't need cabooses anymore. Their main function was for attendants to look through the cupola's windows to see the track ahead and the cars to the front. Computers and cameras do that work now. Cabooses also provided basic living conditions for a train's crew.
While Johnson has fond memories of the train rolling through in Hollywood, he hasn't had much luck finding anyone who has old pictures of it.
Adam Knight, Johnson's supervisor at land use and growth management, said of him, "He is a fine gentleman." He called him "loyal, dedicated and kind-hearted, no doubt about it. I hated to see him go. Charles earned his retirement," he said.
A train ran down from Brandywine to Charlotte Hall and Mechanicsville after many fits and starts in 1881. The line was planned to run down to Point Lookout, and was surveyed and mapped, but never made it. Various companies running the railway went out of business.
Local farmers then took up its use. When the Navy began construction at Pax River in 1942, it took control of the line and extended it to Pegg Road in Lexington Park to bring in heavy supplies. The Navy used it continuously until June 1954 and then for another four months in 1958.
St. Mary's County government bought the line in 1970 for $225,000 after the federal government deemed it surplus. It is now part utility right of way, part hiking trail and part of the path was used to expand Route 235 in places.
