All aboard

View larger image Kisak holds a wooden locomotive that weighs between 25 and 30 pounds. Rich Cooley/Daily Holiday Tour Holiday tour gears up for another season at Belle Grove Plantation Recommend This Print This Get E-mail News Alerts Buy Photos/Page Reprints * Breaking News If local news is breaking and you know about it: * Call Us: 800-296-5137 * E-mail Us * Upload Your Photos View larger image Paul Kisak of Middletown assembles his wooden train display in the parlor at Belle Grove in Middletown. Kisak’s train is made of 632 different species of wood in a project that started in 1989. Rich Cooley/Daily View larger image Coffee bags are displayed in a train car. Rich Cooley/Daily

Museum to highlight wood train built by Middletown resident

By Laetitia Clayton -- lclayton@nvdaily.com

MIDDLETOWN -- Belle Grove Plantation has a new star this year for its Christmas tours: A one-of-a-kind, handcrafted wooden train that contains 632 different species of wood from all over the world, is about 70 feet long and weighs roughly 700 pounds.

The fact that the train was made by a local craftsman makes it even more fitting for the tours, says Belle Grove Executive Director Elizabeth McClung.

"It's very unique and something you won't see anywhere else, to say the least," McClung said. "These are museum-quality artifacts."

The train has a long and interesting history, said its builder, Middletown resident Paul Kisak.

It all began as a surprise Christmas gift for his wife, Kathy, in 1989.

"Trains have been in our families for as long as we can remember," Kisak said, with his own father and grandfather working for Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad. "At Christmastime, everybody would set up trains."

So as a gift that Christmas 21 years ago, Kisak gave his wife the first four pieces of the train: an engine, a caboose, a coal car and another car.

"I was just elated, because I had collected trains, little wooden trains," Mrs. Kisak said. "I had saved up three years to buy one from a gift shop ... and when I showed it to Paul, he said, 'Oh, I can beat that.' A year later, the train came."

But the train's story doesn't stop, or start, there.

Kisak had been a wood collector -- as well as a collector in general -- years before he built anything. While working as an intelligence officer and engineer for the CIA in the '80s, he collected bits of wood during his extensive travels. In all, Kisak has pieces of wood from more than 80 countries, all 50 U.S. states and five continents. He has rare woods -- some that are now extinct -- and woods from well-known sites like The White House, Mount Vernon, Monticello and Ashlawn.

He even has some pieces of a "lunar sycamore," which came from one of the trees planted from seeds that had traveled to the moon and back with astronaut Stuart Allen Roosa on Apollo 14.

Kisak used some of the wood to make the train cars themselves, including wheels, horns, lights and the like, while other bits are used as cargo inside the cars. An average car contains 16 types of wood and is about 16 inches long, he said. In addition to 38 individual train cars, Kisak also made six outbuildings, even constructing the shingles on the roof of the main station building.

The wheels all move, and some of the structures have pulleys that move various parts.
"Anything that is supposed to move, moves," Kisak said, adding that his detailed woodworking ability just comes naturally, with the help of an engineering background.
Some of the cars carry rocks in their beds, which Kisak also collected when he was a mountain climber. Major peaks he has climbed include Mount Washington, The Matterhorn, Pikes Peak, Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens, he said. The gravel and stones in the coal cars came from these mountain ranges, as well as Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon, he said.

The oldest piece of rock dates back to 1776, and is a piece of a cannon ball from the Revolutionary War, Kisak said.

The train made its public debut in 1991 in Today's Woodworker magazine and had some interest from Neiman Marcus, which mentioned the possibility of mass producing the train. But Kisak said he didn't really want that to happen at the time. The train then went into storage, where it remained until last year.

"Just last year I was cleaning the attic, and I thought, 'This has been sitting here for 20 years and nobody is enjoying it,'" Mrs. Kisak said.

The couple got the train out and it re-emerged at a home tour in Middletown last year. Word spread from there, and Belle Grove became interested.

McClung said the Kisaks brought some of the train pieces to the plantation last year for her to see, "and we were just amazed at how wonderful they are."

This year's Christmas tours seemed like the perfect opportunity to showcase the train, which will be set up in the parlor around a 12-foot tall Norwegian Spruce donated by Roy and Betty Wilkins of Winchester, McClung said.

Belle Grove tries to offer something for everyone during its Christmas tours, she said, such as the doll collection it had on a past tour.

"This year, even the boys will like to come because of the train," she said. "It's handcrafted by one of Middletown's own, so it couldn't be a better fit."

For Kisak, the train's story is ongoing. Although the bulk of the project was completed in the 18 months after he gave the first four cars to his wife, he has found himself adding new pieces here and there over the years.

"I added four woods yesterday," he said. And now, there is talk of getting wood from Belle Grove and Wayside.

"I think I have to keep going," he said.