On the Right Track

Pardon Kenney, MD, chief of Surgery, Faulkner Hospital and Model Train Collector

As Chief of Surgery for Faulkner Hospital, Pardon Kenney, MD, is in charge of many things: overseeing the operating rooms, ensuring quality of care, leading the surgical residency education program, and co-chairing the BWH strategic planning committee. But when the surgical gloves come off and he exchanges the operating room for his home basement, Kenney becomes the conductor of his extensive train collection, which includes more than 400 model trains.

This month, Clinical & Research News sat down with Kenney to talk about his hobby.

Are there skills in your career as a surgeon that you apply to your hobby as a train collector, or vice versa?

If you ask surgeons why they like to do what they do, we will say it is because surgery is definitive, it takes care of patients, and we like to work with our hands. Working on trains also involves meticulous work with your hands and eyes. You need good hand-eye coordination. Working on model trains keeps my fingers nimble.  

When did you start collecting trains?  

I started in the late 1970s. I was a surgical resident and a good friend of mine in the surgical residency had gotten involved with collecting. Trains from our childhood 20 years earlier had suddenly become "collectible."  The corollary of my train collecting is an interest in big-time railroads-the full size stuff. There are a variety of train museums throughout the United States that have managed to salvage these old, historic locomotives. When travelling to various surgical meetings, I make sure to visit the local train museum. The full-size trains are incredible testaments to the manufacturing industry that once existed in the United States.

What goes through your mind when setting up a train track?  

I have an excess of 150 locomotives and probably 300 train cars. It is pretty boring to just watch these trains go round and round. So I try to establish routes for the tracks that are complex and visually interesting. Perhaps it has a grade, so it can go up in the air, loop itself and come down again, for example.

Do you have a memorable moment from your years as a train collector?

Several years ago, the Train Collectors of America had a convention in Providence, Rhode Island. Part of the convention included taking local hobbyists on a train track layout tour. I have a train layout in my basement and was asked to be part of the tour circuit. This involved people from the convention coming to my house to look at my train collection.

My kids had set up a table on sawhorses in the garage to serve iced tea to guests. I remember the ground shaking, and this massive bus appears in front of our house. Sixty people get off and walk into our basement. They all have their video cameras and are taking pictures. An hour later the ground shakes again, and the second bus shows up. There were three busloads, so around 180 people went through our house that night!

What do you most enjoy about collecting trains?

It's a hobby that you do after you've had a long, stressful day. I go to my basement and watch the trains go round the track, and that makes me feel better. I also enjoy working on the train layout-putting in new track, adding a stop here, putting a switch in. It takes my mind off what I've been doing all day.