Garden model train hobbyists have a late winter gift for you.
Their annual Rails in the Garden tour is free. Because of that, there are twice as many stops as usual.
“We decided to give back to the community for previous support,” says Chuck Cook, who is organizing this year’s tour by the Tucson Garden Railway Society.
The club got an infusion of funds from co-hosting a national convention in 2008. On top of that, the annual fundraising tour in recent years has brought in more money than members have spent in projects, Cook says.
Without having to mess with selling and taking tickets at each stop, the club needs fewer volunteers to run the event. That allowed more members to show their layouts.
“Anybody that wanted to display this year knew they would be responsible for getting family and neighbors to help out,” he says. “We think each house will need less volunteers.”
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ROCK BOTTOM RAILROAD
This year’s 12th edition will have 16 train stops. One that is full of delight for kids and humor for adults is the Rock Bottom Railroad near Reid Park.
“My goal is to make them all come out smiling,” says Barry Blackwell, who’s the engineer of the five-track layout that runs along the back and side of the property that he and his wife, Gina, own.
Children can stop at the birdhouse village, where a train weaves around colorful birdhouses. That’s run by the Blackwells’ 13-year-old grandson, whose family lives across the street from them.
Once in the backyard, young visitors often notice Stuart Little–a mouse character in books and movies–driving a car and Waldo of “Where’s Waldo” books hiding in the strangest places, says Gina.
They will sit and watch the goings-on of the circus, complete with big top and merry-go-round. They’ll see a train disappear behind a fence and reappear as a clown on a handcar.
Kids–and adults, for that matter–can press buttons to turn on lights or hear the sounds of the One Track Mine.
Which leads to the other way that Barry, a retired carpenter, brings joy to his model railroad.
“He’s been a punster from day one,” says Gina in a tone that sounds like a laugh mixed with a heavy sigh.
Visual and verbal puns pepper the entire layout.
The blacksmith’s name is Horace Shue.
Beverage bottles lined up in neat rows make up the beer garden.
A seller of dromedaries calls his business Camelot.
Barry’s favorite: A swing bridge that is literally track sitting on a swing suspended from a pecan tree.
Other gags abound.
A traffic accident shows colliding Pepsi and Coke trucks.
Bears have taken up in the tent while the humans watch them from sleeping bags on a nearby rock.
The water wheel turns in the opposite direction of the water flow.
Buildings are named after friends and members of the garden railroad club.
BUILDING A RAILROAD
Rock Bottom Railroad itself is named after a chain of brewery-restaurants, one of which the Blackwells saw while in Long Beach, California, for a model train show.
That naturally gave Barry the idea for a motto for his layout that he started in 2000: “The brew must get through.”
Barry, a Lionel train fan as a child, was heavy into HO-scale model trains when he discovered the Tucson Garden Railway Society.
“It’s a lot more family oriented,” he says, compared to other clubs.
The Blackwells had a clean slate when they started building the railroad in the house they owned since 1988. It was essentially dirt and trees.
Barry admits that his main interest in his railroad is showing off his humorous side and the British model cars he collects as part of his passion of restoring real ones.
Fellow club members help him set up the electrical system to run the trains.
About half of the buildings and other accessories that fill the space around the tracks come from other hobbyists who were selling or discarding them.
That includes a theater building that was created by Madelyn Cook, a well-regarded miniature artist whose works are part of the collection at the Mini Time Machine Miniature Museum.
Although Barry technically owns a garden railway since the trains are meant to be run outside, there aren’t many plants incorporated in it.
A few bushes line one wall and three rosemary plants are well-trimmed into cone-shaped evergreens.
Most of the other “greenery” comes from saguaros in a desert scene that artist Brad Peterson painted on the back fence.
Gina says their railroad “tries to incorporate things for all ages.”
But Barry knows who he prefers to please. “The best part,” he says, “is watching the kids’ faces.”
