At 4, Sam Koskie had the best view in the house Saturday morning at the model train show and sale.

Standing eye-level to the display tables overflowing with model trains, Sam inspected all the intricate inner workings of the cars from beneath the brim of his blue-and-white striped engineer’s cap.

Although he wouldn’t allow his inspection to be distracted by conversation, Sam’s father, John Koskie, said his son spotted the ad in the newspaper about the event and informed him they would attend.

“He loves anything with any sort of railroad stuff,” John Koskie said.

The 30th annual show, hosted by the Eastern Maine Model Railroad Club at Jeff’s Catering in Brewer, attracted a diverse group of train fans. The avid collectors and hobbyists browsed the sales tables as parents followed wide-eyed children from one vendor to another.

“As a kid, railroad was really a big thing,” said Alex Kovanko, 48, of Orono. “I think it has changed a lot; kids now are more enamored by TV and video games.”

As a holiday tradition, Kovanko said, his family sets up a train set, which chugs around the Christmas tree. Kovanko said he had trains as a child, and when his son Nick, 9, was born, it was a “good excuse to get back into it.”

For years, trains have passed by Dana Tweedie’s house in Winn, but as a teenager he experienced the rail industry firsthand. At 18, Tweedie shoveled snow from the tracks, a job that could sometimes take days to complete.

“I watched the first diesel engine come into Patten, and my father saw the first ever car come through,” Tweedie said, holding his newly purchased box set of train videotapes.

Other attendees, such as David Kirkpatrick, a member of the Lincoln Model

Railroad Club, brought his model engine to the event to visit William Soule, the “RRx – The Train Doctor.” Kirkpatrick said his parents gave him the 1940s model engine when he was a kid, but it had been a little temperamental recently, and he wanted to test it out. The doctor’s diagnosis: “It should be fine.

“The most frequent problems are dirty wheels and sometimes overlubrication,” said Soule, who has been practicing locomotive medicine for nearly 10 years.

Young and old, fanatics and browsers gathered around the club’s display track Saturday morning, admiring the detailed landscaping and 28-by-16-foot railroad community the club had created. The community, which featured a pond, railroad trestle, small plastic cars and residents, was entirely surrounded by tracks on which a 30-car train mesmerized bystanders with its circular path.

“Our purpose in having this is to promote the hobby in young people who didn’t grow up with the trains,” said Soule, who is a member of the club and a mechanic for the little trains.