Model of Union Station in Worcester

Michael Lavin's scale model of Union Station in Worcester, Massachusetts got back on track after the Worcester Historical Museum showed an interest in it.

Lavin started the project, a 36-foot long display featuring both the old and new Union Stations as they looked in 1911, about 10 years ago. "I picked away at it and, once people at the museum discovered it last year, I probably did more on it in six months than I did in nine years," said Lavin, an artist and former cabinet maker from Sterling.

The exhibit, called "On the Rails," is on view at the Historical Museum through Feb. 16, and comprises a detailed representation of the train stations and their Washington Square neighborhood with three model trains and a trolley running through the scene. The "new" Union Station, recently restored to focal-point status again today, opened in 1911, replacing the "old" station built in 1875. At the time, 140 trains a day rumbled through Worcester, Lavin said. Once cars came into the picture, passenger train service went into decline, and after World War II Union Station slowly became an abandoned shell, a decaying monument to another time.

Video by Dave Niles. Read more at telegram.com. http://www.telegram.com/article/20120119/NEWS/101199930/-1/eworcester

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