Baldwin ? While many Americans buzzed up and down the highways Saturday en route to Labor Day festivities, dozens of area residents instead headed out to experience an old-fashioned ride on the rails.

It was a short ride about an hour and it went only about a dozen miles before turning around. But representatives of the Midland Railway Historical Assn. expect to draw several hundred people this weekend, and local train buffs say that despite the recent financial struggles of Amtrak, the public is still passionate about trains.

Mary Lynn and Randy Poletis and their daughter Maddy, 8, of Lake Lotawana, Mo., enjoy the scenery from a passenger car while riding on the Midland Railway in Baldwin. About 110 people rode the train Saturday morning, and two more round-trips were available in the afternoon.

Maybe it’s curiosity. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Or maybe it’s just part of the American fascination with big machines and a lot of noise.

At his model shop in Blue Springs, Mo., Lewis Boman sells several thousand train cars each year and draws customers from as far away as Germany.

“So much of this is American history,” he said of the train phenomenon. “The railroads really affected this country.”

Like several other cities across the nation, Kansas City, Mo., recently renovated its Union Station, which at its peak in 1917 saw nearly 80,000 trains pass through its portals.

The station has become a major attraction in the city and, according to Boman, has increased area interest in the machines so instrumental in the country’s development. At least two new model stores have opened in the area in the past 10 years, he said.

The models Boman sells can cost up to thousands of dollars, and his client base running the gamut from doctors to truck drivers ranges in age from 30 to 85 years.

In his own basement, Boman has a display depicting 1950s trains in northern California and southern Oregon. Boman can’t pin down why he loves trains so much, but he knows one thing: “I like being around big equipment.”

Dylan Roberts, 15, McLouth, helps his cousin, Hunter Landers, 4, Olathe, down from a passenger car after a morning excursion on the Midland Railway in Baldwin. Train conductor and railway general manager Ernie Griffin of Independence, Mo., helped passengers disembark from the train on Saturday morning.

And apparently, so do dozens of other area residents. Last year the Labor Day weekend rides in Baldwin, which cost $9 for adults and $4 for children, drew about 800 people. And this past June’s visit of Thomas the Tank Engine, a character from a popular children’s television series, brought 16,000 to town.

“We’ve gone from just having a little ragtag railroad to a pretty professional operation,” said Ernie Griffin, the railroad’s volunteer general manager and Saturday’s conductor.

As the train completed its run-around at the former town site of Norwood and headed home, the overall-clad Griffin talked to two wide-eyed, 10-year-old girls.

Sara Smith, Lenexa, liked knowing she could reach out the window and touch the trees as the train chugged slowly along. And for Kaity Martin, Topeka, the thrill of the ride was “rocking back and forth.”

Nearly last off the train were Dean and Martha Kuykendall of Osage City.

Dean Kuykendall remembered an aunt who would make time to catch the train a little farther down the line just to save a nickel. And Martha remembered riding the Santa Fe Super Chief all the way to California more than 50 years ago.

Together, the couple remembered the transportation of yesteryear, when few options existed aside from bus, train or foot.

But, the couple said, they were fond memories of hitching rides in baggage cars, sleeping as the train raced down its track and eating in dining cars on linen tablecloths.

Martha said she didn’t remember how much that trip to California cost her, but she knows it wasn’t much.

“I’m sure at home somewhere in an old scrapbook I have the ticket,” she said.