Christmas is always a great time to get out and see the light shows, tour the lit homes, hear concerts and, here in the Phoenix area, travel around to see the Garden Train displays. I’ve never heard of a Garden Train set-up but it has cars and engines which are called G-style which are 1/24th scale of a real train. These stand 5” - 6” tall and require a large yard to have a decent train set. It also requires a hefty budget. For example:
Here’s an example of an engine that retails for $1029. And, that’s just the engine. Whoop-de-doo, you’ve got to buy track and more train cars and lots of other paraphernalia that goes with this hobby (My hobby is hiking - a nice cheap hobby - the only expense is the soda at the end - well, then there’s the annual cost of a new pair of boots).
But, back to the entertainment of the day. Our neighbors were telling us that they were going out to visit the Garden Train displays in Mesa in the evening. We hadn’t heard about them, listened to their stories and decided that would be fun. One was withing 4 miles and we went there first - we figured out later that this one was the largest and most elaborate. The owner says he got his first train set when he was 3 years old and is now addicted. He started with the G scale trains in 1982 and has been adding to his layout every year since.
He has a large back yard and has more than 6000’ of track. He has it elevated to waist high for better viewing and working on and has flower beds lining the tracks.
He even has a viewing platform so one can see the whole layout.
The whole layout consists of mountains, streams, lakes, people, buildings, a round house a refinery, a waterfall, several very elaborate bridges
and attracts multitudes of sightseers during the times he is open around Christmas. For this display he has a landscaping crew there, many others in his club to help with the trains, a firepit area to warm up with hot chocolate if it’s cold, a singer,
a waffle truck selling all kinds of treats
and a Santa Clause to speak with the children who come.
As we were walking out, we took a peek inside his garage (no cars park in here) where he keeps all his ‘extra’ cars, engines, track and layout.
This was some layout.
No comments:
Post a Comment