Aidan Jayaranan, 5, Lawrence, watches a garden scale train set making its rounds Saturday at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, building 21. The fairgrounds was host to the Lawrence Model Railroad Show and Swap Meet on Saturday.

Tim Scholl, 67, Kansas City, Mo., a retired Air Force officer, looks through boxes of train parts.

Max Gabrielson, 3, watches locomotives roll along the tracks at the Lawrence Model Railroad Club.

Like most boys under five, Ryan and Aidan Orth have Thomas & Friends trains.

But at Saturday’s Lawrence Model Railroad Show and Swap Meet, dad Mike Orth said there were many others they would love to have.

“Him more than anyone,” wife Kim Orth said, pointing to her husband. “He is the biggest kid.”

And that’s the draw of the train show, organizer Jim Taylor said. It brings out the young and those who are just young at heart.

“I think everyone remembers the first model train they got, probably under a Christmas tree,” Taylor said. “That has always fascinated me and many others.”

Saturday’s show, the eighth annual for the Lawrence Model Railroad Club, took place at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. It had more than 500 people checking out train sets and vendors.

Along with displays from the Lawrence club, there were elaborate train sets from Manhattan and Topeka.

Whether big or small, the train sets were filled with detail. As the trains chugged along the tracks, they passed baseball diamonds, children flying kites, churches and Victorian homes, even a pair of men playing chess. The trains had whistles and lights and carried passengers, steel and logs.

Joe Pelletier, who came with a club from Manhattan, had his trains on display Saturday. A second look at the box cars shows the length Pelletier goes to make the trains look authentic — graffiti is spray-painted onto the sides.

“I send it off to a kid in California, and he does it,” Pelletier said.

Still, Pelletier said he comes to the shows for the children.

“It’s the mystique as they are watching it go by,” he said.

Along with a chance to draw people into the hobby of model railroads, Taylor said Saturday’s event also helped out a charity. Canned food donations were made to the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen, or LINK.