Sick Santa Fes, troubled Thomases and hospitalized Hogwarts Expresses make unscheduled stops this time of year in an Overlea basement that amounts to an electric train emergency room.
Brian Kirsch, a 54-year-old Verizon cable splicer, spends his Sundays and nights at a workbench, repairing trains that just won't run right.
"As a kid I just liked taking things apart and seeing how they worked," he said one day last week as he lifted out the innards of a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad steam engine marked Royal Blue. "I had no training at first. It was just something I liked doing. I figured it out on my own."
In late fall, many local collectors and families begin to think about their Christmas traditions. Some will set up trains, but that doesn't mean they'll take off down the track when a transformer is turned on. Toy trains can be temperamental and require repairs.
"It begins to get busy in October and peaks about Christmas," Kirsch said. "But people will want their trains fixed all through January and February, too."
Not all the trains consigned to him for repair are miniature coal-burning specimens from the glory Lionel period of the 1950s and 1960s, which collectors call the postwar years.
He notes that the popularity of the Thomas the Tank Engine cartoons, the Polar Express books and the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling have propelled toy makers to devise puffing, smoking rail locomotives that are marketed to children, who put them to heavy use.
When they break or won't smoke any more, some find their way to Kirsch's industrial infirmary. Some break down before their warranties expire, and others suffer wrecks, most when they run off an elevated platform and crash to the floor.
"I also get trains that have been stored away for 40 years," he said, showing a box of neatly stored Lionels. "They need cleaning. They have dried out. The wires have dry-rotted. The whistles in the coal tenders won't sound."
He also spends hours undoing the damage created by toy railroading's signature sight — the trail of puffy white smoke.
Synthetic train smoke, either produced by liquid or aspirin-sized pellets, is one of the lasting holiday scents, right up there with a fresh-cut balsam tree or a batch of ginger cookies in a hot oven. But the smoke fluid gunks electric motors, and its residue inhibits the flow of electricity from the rails.
"Everyone wants their steam engines to smoke," he said, holding the damaged heating element from an engine. Sometimes he can chip away the smoke pellet residue, but in bad cases he has to replace the whole unit. "About 60 to 70 percent of the trains that come in have broken smoke units," he said.
"He can perform miracles," said Phil "Mack" Meckel, a manager at the M.B. Klein model railroad store in Cockeysville, which refers its customers to Kirsch for repairs. "He cannot only get engines operational, but he can fix cars and operational buildings, too."
Kirsch received his first train set as a child. His father bought it at an old Two Guys department store on Belair Road near Clifton Park. He played with it and put it away during his years in the Marine Corps. But a few years later he saw a magazine ad for a special set offered through American Express and shortly after bought 1920s tinplate trains produced by the Lionel Corp. His wife won't let his train collection upstairs, so he runs his passenger express trains and freights around the ducts of the family Rheem furnace.
Kirsch has cabinets of parts — wheels, couplers, tiny electrical devices — lining his basement walls. He also has a computer to get parts from manufacturers and other sources around the country. Dead electrical transformer? No problem. He'll fix that, too, and tell you of his preference for powerful transformers made before the 1960s.
Last summer, he spent a week in Ohio to get additional training to become certified in the repair of Lionel trains and now uses voltage meters to test trouble spots. And as trains have grown more sophisticated, he has to consult the Internet for the electronic digital boards now used in some more sophisticated toy train products.
"He's like a watchmaker," said John Grabowski, a customer who lives in Northeast Baltimore. "He's a jolly person, very concerned with what he is doing. And his turnaround time is great. He'll also tell you if what you've brought him isn't worth fixing."
"It's tedious work," Grabowski added. "You have to be meticulous and use tweezers with all those little screws, gears and armatures."
Kirsch prides himself on not taking too much time for most train repairs. He spends his Saturdays at the Klein store in Cockeysville, where he discusses the problems with customers who bring in their broken engines and rail cars. Once he gets them back to his home, he divides the work: Those that can be fixed quickly get the highest priority and are returned to their owners within a week. The ones that are seriously damaged, and require scarce parts, take more time.
"I want to get as much done as quickly as possible," he said. "Part of the fun of the hobby is seeing the trains run. There are people who just buy to own the trains. They never take them out of the box. That's not me."