ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701170025
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FLEMINGTON, N.J.
SOURCE: KATHY BOCCELLA KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE WRITER
Bruce Zaccagnino marches through his clacking empire like a beleaguered field marshal.
``Pablo, a couple of trains are down in the desert scene,'' he barks into a walkie-talkie, stopping in front of an engine that has derailed in the sand.
As soon as Pablo appears, Zaccagnino hurries through a maze of hallways that go past skyscrapers and ghost towns, mountains and canyons, airports and circuses. He stops at a mountain panorama dominated by a huge, ornate iron bridge spanning a deep gorge.
``There should be more trains running here,'' he mutters to no one in particular, sounding like a harried commuter late for work.
While Zaccagnino says he has never set foot on a train, his 52,000-square-foot Northlandz in Flemington, N.J., houses what is believed to be the world's largest HO-scale railroad set, with some Lionel and G-scale thrown into the mix.
Zaccagnino says he's not even a train buff. Rather, he is an artist who has built a gargantuan landscape of miniature cities, mountain gorges, rivers and other bits of whimsy - there are, for instance, an outhouse factory, a toothpick farm, a hobo cemetery, a floating miniature golf course and a plane crashing into the side of a mountain - sprung from his vivid imagination.
He is the Michelangelo of Hydrocal, the plaster-like goop he used to sculpt his ``scenic wonderland,'' as he calls it. Every wee building - and there are thousands - he built himself, most from scratch, some from kits.
The 50,000 feet of track, 10,000 cars and 135 locomotives were more an afterthought.
``The trains add animation to the artwork,'' the goateed Zaccagnino, wearing his trademark floppy fedora, said in an interview after a speedy tour of the exhibit, which normally takes about two hours to see.
Opened Dec. 19 in a columned gray building, which also houses a 250-seat theater with a 2,000-pipe organ, an art gallery and a doll collection - ``something for the ladies,'' he says - Northlandz is already drawing big crowds.
On a recent Sunday, visitors waited outside in the rain and jammed the narrow hallways that zigzag through the multilevel exhibit.
Zaccagnino, an entrepreneur who has owned several businesses, got started as a model railroader 24 years ago in the basement of his home in Three Bridges, N.J. When the collection outgrew the room, he added a second basement, then a third, a fourth and a fifth. For 15 years, he opened his home to the public two weekends a year to raise money for charity.
``It was a hobby that got out of control,'' he said with a shrug. But even then, the emphasis was on the scenery, not the trains.
He was forced to shut down in 1989; sued by a man who had slipped on a step, he lost his insurance. He and his wife, Jean, decided to turn their hobby into a business and started looking for property.
Northlandz cost $9 million and took four years to create, according to its creator. After purchasing the 16-acre site, he worked seven days a week, 19 hours a day, to create his ``scenic wonderland.'' Financed through loans and personal savings, it is as much a labor of love as a business venture.
``As an artist, I felt compelled to give this to the world, but I'd like to make money, too. I'd be a crazy artist if I didn't say that,'' said Zaccagnino, also a self-taught organist who performs and has made recordings under the name Bruce Williams.
(The entry fee at Northlandz is $12.75 for adults and $8.75 for children. Return visitors get a discount Monday through Friday.)
There is a Barnumesque quality to the hodgepodge display of trains, dolls, ``starving artist'' paintings, old radios and taxidermy, and also to Zaccagnino's assertion that there is nothing on Earth quite like Northlandz.
The exhibit does not attempt to re-create any real railroads or places. As visitors wend through the approximately mile-long hallway, they'll see a ghost town, logging community, frontier fort, Indian pueblo and tepees, Alpine village, Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, Pizza Hut, used-car lot, airport, movie theater showing ``Gone With the Wind,'' Civil War battlefield, hotels, golf courses, a circus with an enormous built-from-scratch roller-coaster, uncounted factories and about 400 bridges, among many other things. Some scenic tableaus have names, such as the Pennsylvania Gap and Iron Valley.
Mirrors are strategically placed to make some scenes appear larger, or to reflect a tiny village hidden behind a hillside. The mirrors also create canyons that appear deceptively deep.
The trains, which include the HOs (HO-scale means 1/87 actual size), the larger O-gauge Lionels and even larger G-gauge trains, are run from a control room where operators monitor their whereabouts like air-traffic controllers.
Three or four workers are constantly fixing broken trains, and it's not unusual to see a hand poking out from a tunnel or a shoeless employee stepping carefully around tiny trees to reach a disabled coach.
As visitors ascend, gorges get deeper, mountains get higher, and bridges get longer - the longest is 38 feet - but there is a sameness to the displays. After the first hour or so, some people may get bored by the repetition. Children may not be able to see some displays. Some visitors complained about the absence of an ``escape route'' and the lack of bathrooms along the pathway.
And serious model railroad enthusiasts may be disappointed by the lack of authenticity. Jim Kelly, managing editor of Model Railroader, said he's never heard of a layout that approaches Northlandz in size, but ``it's not really what most of our readers are interested in.''
Though he said he has never seen it, others have told him that it's amazing, but not realistic. ``It's more in the fantasy category,'' he said.
Most people, however, leave Northlandz in awe.
``People are calling it a wonder of the world,'' boasted Zaccagnino, who lives inside Northlandz.
As he walks through the display, he stops and asks visitors, ``Are you folks having fun?''
``It's fantastic, it's awesome,'' replied one man. ``I can't believe it. You need to go through twice to see everything.''
Another visitor, who was with his ``train freak'' son, told Zaccagnino ``You've got Disneyland in New Jersey.''
The creator beams. If the kudos and long lines continue, Zaccagnino said he plans to add two wings, though he won't reveal their contents.
Perhaps his greatest compliment came from a swami known as Jagadishswarandandji, who visited Northlandz in August before it opened, at the behest of an Indian engineer who worked on the building. He was so impressed that he bestowed the Hindu ``Maan Patra'' award, which recognizes ``divine wisdom, artistic talent and humility.''
``They feel that God dwells on this site,'' Zaccagnino said. But then even he realizes how ridiculous that sounds.
``That's as hokey as it gets,'' he added.
LENGTH: Long : 129 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: KRT. 1. Details are remarkable in Northlandz, theby CNBworld's largest exhibit of model railroads. They include this
amusement park, complete with roller coaster overlooking model
trains that run along mountain ranges in the distance. Northlandz, a
52,000-square-foot railroad layout in Flemington, N.J., boasts
50,000 feet of track, 10,0000 railroad cars, 135 locomotives, 400
bridges and hundreds of towns, mountains and rivers. 2. Assistant
train engineer Bob Walsh (left) and Bruce Zaccagnino watch over the
controls for the engines at Northlandz. Walsh is in radio contact
with crew members around the track to pinpoint and correct and
problems.