Casey Jones could hold these locomotives in the palm of his hand.

T oot! Tooooot!

Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga.

Clang! Clang!

The Belmont Shore Railroad is rolling through San Pedro.

Unfortunately, one cannot actually climb aboard the Belmont Shore--the cars are no longer than 6 inches and the track is just 9 millimeters wide.

But this weekend one can view the make-believe line--which runs for a whopping 825 feet past tiny cities and farm towns, over glistening rivers and under majestic mountains, all created in painstaking, meticulous detail--when the Belmont Shore Model Railroad Club holds its open house at Angels Gate Park.

The 17-year-old club, so named because it was founded in the Belmont Shore section of Long Beach, expects between 300 and 400 people, most of them model railroad enthusiasts, to attend the open house, one of two it holds each year.

The club will open its doors at 10 a.m. each day and will sponsor clinics for those interested in model railroading. Members will likely reveal their tricks of the trade, such as the way they use ball fringe, painted green, to make treetops. Then, they empty cold capsules and roll the trees in the contents to give the illusion of oranges hanging from the branches. And they use fur to create the illusion of wheat fields and painted corduroy for tilled soil.

At 1 p.m. Sunday, club members will auction model railroad equipment and accessories at what it says will be “very attractive prices.” The nominal admission fees for the open house are being donated to charity.

Even for those who are not interested in model railroading as a hobby, the Belmont Shore line is an impressive sight. Club members say their 40-by-90-foot model is the largest N-scale model railroad in the United States.

N-scale models are built at 1/160th of life-size and are about half the size of the popular HO railroads, which are built on a 1/87th scale. Thus, the 825-foot-track of the Belmont Shore approximates 25 miles of real track.

The line is laid out in intricate miniature, much of which has been constructed from scratch, without kits.

A city-scape shows the fire-gutted headquarters of the Belmont Shore Railroad General Services Building. A silver Corvette speeding along a bridge has evidently crashed through a guardrail into a road sign, where police cruisers are gathered at the scene. Tiny railroad crossing signs have red light bulbs, 8/100th of an inch in diameter, that flick on and off when a train passes by.

There are giant cranes at a harbor, where firms such as Terminal Grain, Midland Chemical and the Ripoff Trading company conduct business. There is graffiti--although it says nothing about Bloods or Crips--on the fence at the repair yard. On a hillside, a damaged railroad car lies dormant. Fred Smith, a past president of the club, muses that “it was too expensive for the railroad company to move it.”

Although the railroad is quite elaborate, Smith said it is far from completed. And, he added, the Belmont Shore Model Railroad Club would like to keep it that way.

“It’s not finished,” he said, as he picked up a miniature City Hall that needed to be put into place. “It will never be finished.”

WHAT: Belmont Shore Model Railroad Club Open House.

WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.

WHERE: Building 824, Angels Gate Park, off Gaffey Street, San Pedro.

COST: $1 per person, $2 per family.