Workin’ on the railroad

By Deborah Storey | Living 50 Plus

A tiny train chugs its way through a Decatur backyard, past stumpy little trees and a small-scale mountain, then across a realistic miniature bridge.

Mark and Barb Brown created this whimsical railroad as a way to share a pastime, enjoy the outdoors and basically just have some fun.

The Browns’ railroad is roughly based on one in western Colorado, where the couple met and lived for a while.

“I became interested in three different Colorado railroads when we lived there,” said Mark, a second-generation Colorado native.

The one he honors in his backyard project is Uintah Railway, which ran from outside Grand Junction over Baxter Pass to gilsonite mines in northern Utah. Gilsonite is a tar-like mineral used in durable coatings, explained Mark, who should know. The 70-year-old is a former mining engineer.

He also has models of the Little Book Cliff Railway in Colorado and Utah, and an engine representing the Denver and Rio Grande Western.

“I’ve got one very short passenger train I run, but most of the time I’ll run one of my freight trains on the railroad,” he said. “If you’ve looked at the different buildings or features that I have, they all have names from our personal histories.”

He has four different engines, “but I only run one train at a time on the railroad just because of the layout. I haven’t gotten far enough to set it up to run several trains at once,” Mark said.

A miniature cattle pen called Tumbling River Ranch is an inside joke in reference to Barb’s former work as a wrangler in central Colorado. One of the train stations is called Grant for a small town in Colorado. Other sites are named for north Alabama places such as Burning Tree Brewing Co.

Mark began working on the project about two years ago right before he abruptly found out that he needed open heart surgery. His brother was visiting at the time and helped get the layout started.

Through Mark’s former career that involved starting up copper tube factories for Wolverine, the couple has lived in several states and three countries.

Barb said this is the fifth model railroad her husband has built in the various places they’ve lived.

“I just had a very, very small railroad wherever we went,” her husband added.

The couple moved to Burningtree Mountain in Decatur in 2003 while he was still working. They’ve since relocated about a mile down the road to Burningtree Valley to downsize.

The only family connection to railroading Mark is aware of is through his father, who lived in Nebraska and liked to count train cars when they went past a local division point there. Mark did have a model railroad when he was younger, but not until high school.

The couple has occasional neighborhood open houses. Some of Barb’s friends in the Morgan County Master Gardeners program visit, too.

“The kids all enjoy it,” Mark said. “One of the more lively engines, which has a lot of up and down motion when it’s running, that will attract them and they’ll follow it. We’ve got cows in the Tumbling River cattle pen, so they’ll comment on them.”

Grown men like it too, especially those who had train sets as children.

Mark leaves the track and most structures outside all the time but takes the engines and cars inside for needed maintenance.

“Part of the maintenance that I have to do in the spring and fall is check that the track is still level and in good shape, but the maintenance overall is not very much,” he said.

“It’s kind of like a real railroad where the track will expand and contract with weather.”

In spring, he oils and greases the wheels and gears on all locomotives, then greases wheels on the cars.

“I check that all the couplers work well so the train wheels stay together when it’s running around the track. And there will always be something like a brake wheel or some small part on one or two of the cars that is broken off, and I repair that. But that’s really all the maintenance that I have to do.”

Their little railroad is Garden – or “G” – Scale, which is bigger than N, HO, S or O. The length of track is about 150 feet on the main line. G components are specifically designed to weather the outdoors.

Model train ratios are in proportion to their full-sized counterparts. The most familiar is O scale, or 1:48, meaning 48 times smaller than their real-life match. HO, the most popular size among hobbyists, is 1:87. N is half the size of HO at 1:16. O, or 1:48, is a typical Lionel toy train. G is anything larger than O.

Barb contributes her Master Gardener expertise by cleaning out debris in the fall and spring, pulling weeds and choosing plants appropriate for the setting.

She layered rocks around the small mountain. Plants that look like small shrubs and bushes and scrubby vegetation complete the “ranch.” Little goldfish – not koi – stay in the pond all year.

The small fishing camp has a path “so the fishermen can get from the camp over to the fish in the pond. I’ve got pond plants in the water that I’ve just gotten from local nurseries,” she said.

If a plant gets too large to fit in the railroad scene, “I just dig ’em up and put them someplace else and put a new small plant in there.”

“Barb does a good job of picking plants that have small leaves and look appropriate for the size of the railroad,” Mark added.

Most are from the sedum and thyme families.

“To some small degree there are three areas on the railroad and we try to arrange the vegetation accordingly — grass plants around the pond, bushy plants on the ‘mountain,’ and scrub plants around the corral,” she said.

Annuals provide a splash of color in this compact Western village.

Mark owns about 40 train cars and “four or five engines, but he only runs one at a time because of the way the layout is designed,” Barb added.

Right now the little backyard layout is pretty much the size the couple wants.

“The overall railroad is about 60 feet long and 12 feet wide. And I think that size is appropriate for the size of our yard. I haven’t thought yet about making it any bigger right now. We’re just happy working with it — trying out new plants and just keeping it looking good,” Mark said.

Barb, 74, said the railroad is her husband’s main hobby and not that expensive compared to some others.

“If you look at other hobbies that people might have, collecting cars or drag racing or golf or fishing or boating, I actually think it’s less than any of those,” she said.

A typical engine is $300-$400 but can cost much more; the cars about $100. Parts come from model and hobby shops around the country.

“There was one big hobby shop in Colorado that whenever we would go out to visit our relatives, I’d always make a point of stopping there,” Mark said.

“It does not seem like work to us at all because it’s fun,” said Barb. “It’s outside. We both enjoy being outside and we kind of went into this knowing that it was something we could do together. I like that.”