Print edition: 
The haunting call of a train's whistle rang out many times Sunday inside the Sedgwick County Extension Center.
Old men dressed in blue chambray shirts, blue jeans and black orthopedic shoes laughed in delight over toy boxcars, engines and cabooses.
Small children riding on their dads' shoulders giggled as well.
"I'm one of those gray-haired men," said Jim Hickman, vice president of the Wichita Toy Train Club. "I had trains all my life. My dad purchased a train for me for my first Christmas. I was one month old."
On Sunday, several hundred train enthusiasts came to the club's show and swap meet to buy, sell or trade trains and their accessories.
It's become an annual tradition for the club, which four years ago lost its lease at the Twin Lakes Shopping Center.
Since then, club members put their collections in storage and have been looking for a place to relocate.
In the meantime, says club president Albert Hubl, they are in no hurry.
"It is just a matter of time before we find a location that's between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet," Hubl said. "We are open to a three- to five-year lease. We can't do six months at a time because some of our layouts take up to 100 hours or more to set up, with all the details."
Each month, new options come up for the club to relocate, Hubl said. But so far, there has been no match.
"In the meantime, we continue to build up our funds. We are closer than we were last year at this time but still farther away than we want to be."
Train sets on Sunday sold anywhere from $50 to $1,000, with most in the $400 range.
Hubl said he became involved with collecting toy trains when his children were born. His son, now 13, has been a train enthusiast since he was 2.
"What catches people, I think, is all the moving parts," Hubl said. "That's what I like about the steam locomotives. There are so many moving parts."
And if you think trains are of a bygone era, you are wrong, Hubl said.
"They are the future," he said of both real and toy trains. "You can move weight at cheaper rates. And these toy trains, they are still amazing to have around a Christmas tree or in a shop or downstairs in a basement. You can get away from the race of everyday life."
Hickman agrees.
He still remembers playing with his first train set, a 1940 American Flyer O-gauge.
A few years later, his brother received an S-gauge.
Hickman said he now has a vast collection of miniature trains.
"The trains are what keep this country running," he said.
And by evidence of the number of train whistles sounded on Sunday, it was what kept the crowds enthralled.
