All Aboard — The Trains At NorthPark Thanks To Dr. Choo-Choo
The trains are up, running, and even stopping at NorthPark. Yup, Ban “Dr. Choo-Choo” Bywaters and his out-of-this-world miniature train set are officially back in 
action between Dillard’s and Macy’s. It was kicked off Saturday morning at a breakfast ribbon cutting (pictured, back row: Sam Dalton Jr., Katie Dalton, Loring Dalton, Peyton Nichols, and his mom Katie Nichols; front row: Alexandra Riley, Pearson Riley, and William Dalton) complete with sponsors, kids, and adults who are young at heart including NP 
GM Billy Hines (pictured with Ban in the blue shirt).
The ever-changing, mega-train world that Ban has created over the years takes 9 engineers, three exhibit managers and a mere 1,500 volunteers to operate daily from Saturday until January 3 except for Thanksgiving and Christmas days. So far the trains have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles since they debuted in 1988 resulting in raising $5M for the Ronald McDonald House of Dallas. Last year over 83,000 people ooh-ed and awed at the incredible world with the 30+ trains running the rails.
While Ban, who is also president of the Preston Center Rotary Club and a VP at Merrill Lynch, will attribute the choo-choo effort to his saintly wife Kathleen, he’s been a sucker for the mini-trains since he was a kid. First his dad started buying the model trains for Ban’s older brother David and then Ban saw the enormous train set that used to reside at the former Preston Road Neiman Marcus, where Tootsie’s and Houston’s now call home. Since then he’s been designing and building huge sets and smaller ones like the one on display in front of the NorthPark Train Depot that will be raffled off this year on December 17 at 6 p.m.
The 2009 honorary chair family is Carol and Sam Dalton and their four children. Serving as “Kid Conductor” was four-year-old Peyton Nichols, who was born 15 weeks early and stayed at RMHD with his family.
Among the crowd were Callie and Lyle (pictured) Hawkins, who stopped by Victoria’s Secret. No, not for shopping. The blond twosome know that makeup is everything when you’re partying, so they had “Ms. Connie” paint their faces with snowflakes.
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