(whistle blowing) (theme music) Announcer: Support for Tracks Ahead is provided in part by Kalmbach Publishing Company and its on-line video magazine, Model Railroader Video Plus.

And by Walthers.

(theme music) Spencer: Hi, I'm Spencer Christian.

On this episode of Tracks Ahead, we'll ride one of the east coast's premier tourist lines--- check out a Northern Illinois LGB garden layout that basically puts itself away after being run--- Plus, we'll discover 'who-dunnit' on a murder mystery train.

But first, a visit to Oregon to explore an incredible F gauge layout that uses sight, sound and props to showcase the beauty of a Colorado narrow gauge Let's get started.

Narrator: Tom Miller has had a lot of interests in his lifetime.

But one over-riding hobby has been trains.

And in the early 70's his father got him started in a big way.

Tom Miller: My father was a tool and die maker and had a friend that worked at Lockheed that had a live steam locomotive that ran at Griffith Park.

So I went to Griffith Park, I saw the live steam, my dad fortunately being a tool and die maker was capable of building one and teaching me to build one so we built our first little engine 0-4-0, Which I ran that at Griffith Park for a while and then it just sort of escalated from there, going up to the Big Boys, K36s building my own railroad... it got way out of hand.

Narrator: When Tom settled in Oregon, he decided he wanted his own 7 ½ inch gauge railroad.

Tom: So I built this track, Its 11,000 feet of track, 7500 feet of it is the main line I have about 60 or 70 freight cars I built, 3 steam locomotives, a couple of diesels.

It's become a big project.

The railroad features a 400 foot long trestle, a 300 foot long tunnel, it's a pretty spectacular set up.

I have two really spectacular steam locomotives.

One is the Big Boy in inch and a half scale, and I have a 2 1/2 inch scale K36.

I built the K36 with a friend of mine and the Big Boy was built in England by Severin & Lamb.

The Big Boy has a stainless steel boiler, one of the few locomotives in the country that has a stainless boiler.

It has two working cross compound air compressors that put out about 140 pounds of air.

It has working sanders, air operated bell, working power reverse.

I mean, everything on it is just like the real thing.

The K36 was an effort I tried on my own because I wanted to see if I could match the quality of Severin & Lamb.

And I started the K36, a friend of mine got involved who is an excellent machinist.

The two of us built two K36s that turned out just fabulous.

Narrator: Tom had American Flyer as a child, and so it stands to reason that he would have a layout.

Tom: My American Flyer layout is something I've dreamt of having my whole life.

I started with Flyer when I was a kid at 5 years old, had the circle of track, a couple of trains, that was about it.

Spent my time looking through catalogues wishing I had everything.

Now that I have the means to buy the stuff I ended up going on eBay and getting everything.

And now that it's finished my grandkids, and my friends bring their grandkids in here and the kids just love it.

There's buttons to push, things just happen, things go, accessories work.

And most of the time by the time they've played with it for a half an hour they look around at their parents and go why don't we have this?

So it's really fun to watch kids enjoy them.

Narrator: Tom wanted more, something to work on in the winter months.

The results are housed inside this replica of a 1890s depot.

The main attraction is an amazing F scale layout.

Tom Miller: F scale came about, it's a fairly new thing to the hobby.

The same gauge, size track as G scale.

The difference is these locomotives are scaled from the track up.

So they're perfectly scaled to the track.

Where most G scale locomotives are not.

They're either too big or too small to be exactly right.

And being a perfectionist, I wanted it exactly right Narrator: Tom wanted to model a region that would showcase the trains.

Tom Miller: Colorado narrow gauge has always been one of my favorites.

I liked main line steam in the past.

But when you start looking into narrow gauge, and what it took to build those railroads, and how they built America, everything about them is just, they're quirky locomotives, the cars, the equipment is odd and quirky.

And it's just very interesting to mode.

Narrator: In many respects, Tom didn't take the normal approach to building the layout.

Tom: I had never built a detailed indoor layout like this.

And by contacting some people in the hobby and local modelers, they started talking to me about how to do it, and teaching me how to do it, and it became obvious to me, at least the way I like to run trains is that I treated it more like theater.

I wanted very nice lighting, I wanted the scenes, I wanted the trains to run in and out of scenes as thought they were actors playing a part.

A role and coming and going from the stage.

This project took a total of about 5 1/2 years.

I started building the buildings, they took a year themselves.

Tom Miller: The thing that made this the easiest to build for a layout this size was the mountains and the scenery and the rocks that go into the mountains.

This is a product made by Bragdon Enterprises and it's a foam product, called geodesic foam.

And it allows you to cast rock castings from molds, very highly detailed molds, getting detail you can't get in plaster.

And they are so light weight that you can have molds that are, in this case some of our molds were 4 feet square.

So you can pour this plastic material in and as it starts to harden you can peel it out of the mold and you're holding a rock that's 4 feet square that weighs maybe two pounds.. All the trees were hand made.

I made very few of them.

There's about 4,000 trees in here.

And frankly that's one of the reasons I modeled this Chama and New Mexico area is because there aren't a lot of trees.

A layout this size, if you modeled the northwest, could easily have 20,000 trees on it.

And I certainly wasn't up to building 20,000 trees.

One of the most satisfying things for me in building this layout was finding that I had some artistic talent.

I really can't draw a straight line.

And to come in here and do this and design the scenery as we did.

To plant the trees and the bushes and the rocks and design the hills and the mountains and the tracks and have it turn out like this is probably the most amazing thing for me on the whole layout.

I really never knew I had this sort of talent Narrator: One of the special features takes the layout from day to night and back again.

Tom: This lighting system was designed by a local gentleman who put it in a club layout in Portland.

We took that design and with his help we massaged the system.

And I ended up having the build these light fixtures myself because I couldn't find them to be the proper design.

We spent about three months in a hydraulic hoists up in the air wiring and installing this entire lighting system.

And it was done before anything was in here.

You had to be able to get up to the ceiling to wire this thing.

So basically it runs a 24 hour light cycle and we do it we find to do it in about 40 minutes.

For about 20 minutes if fades slowly down to Midnight.

It stays there for a short time and then slowly fades back up to Noon again.

The sound systems came from a fellow that has a company called Fantasonics.

And he basically makes SD cards that have sound effects on them: sawmills, stamp mills, rivers, running water, you name it.

What he did for me was to come here and we installed all of the sound devices and speakers in the buildings around the room, and then he recorded different sound effects for me.

So each one of my structures has its own individual sound effect.

Narrator: Does Tom have any favorite spots along the line?

Tom: I would have to say the stamp mill.

It's fully animated.

When you look inside the belts are turning, the stamps go up and down, the grizzlies are turning, the shaker tables, everything works.

So it's one of my favorite spots on the layout.

Well, we have a lot of things in here that are very highly detailed.

I wanted certain things to be accurate.

In this scale, it's very close to 1 inch doll house equipment so all, most, almost all of these structures have interior details and lighting.

The computer controls the lighting along with the ambient light.

We put all the detail in them we could.

Gibson's Diner, we tried to put a little humor here and there.

Gibson's Diner, our dog's name was Gibson.

We have the Wigwam Lodge, which is called Sweet Sue's Wigwam Lodge.

My wife's name is Sue, so we named it after her.

There's a few little things like that around here.

Narrator: Tom's passion for railroading is certainly clear.

And we are very glad to have seen his accomplishments.

(music) Spencer: Coming up, themed rides for tourist line trips always make for a memorable run on the rails.

The Kempton, Wanamaker and Southern railroad does a great job of keeping everyone guessing on it's murder mystery tour.

But next, an Illinois LGB layout that features pretty much everything you'd expect in a garden setup- including miniature plantings.

But one feature sure makes life easy for this owner when it comes time to put it all to bed.

(music) Narrator: It is in the Chicago suburb of Elgin, that we visit a garden railroad.

It is here that Jim Snorek and fellow garden railway club members have built an empire.

Of course for Jim, it all started at an early age.

Jim Snorek: I started with my first set when I was probably five or six.... ... you know the good old 50's with the Lionel.

Narrator: Later in life, Jim developed a taste for larger trains.

Jim Snorek: It was a starter set from LGB that I ran around the Christmas tree.

One of the Marshall Field's Specials.

And then I went to a train show.

And the train club that I am now in was there with a floor display.

I said, This is cool.

I want to expand.

So I got started with the train club and one thing leads to another and before you know it, you've got an empire.

Narrator: Jim started with a computer design, working around the house and other fixed items on the lot.

He knew that water features make a garden railroad much more interesting.

Jim: We started building this in 2010 in Fall with the water feature.

Came back and actually started getting the roadbed in for the lot, we already had it done on the computer.

Narrator: Lines meander around the garden with plenty to see on the way.

Jim: When you start out of the yard you go under a couple of bridges, foot bridges, pedestrian bridges that I incorporated into the layout.

As you keep going around the outer loop there's a switching section out there to bring you in or out of the outer loop, into that mountain loop or stay on that outer loop.

And then you go past that around and you go past, well, there's a couple of villages out there that you go past.

The bird feeder village, and then there's a village of little fairy type buildings on the far side of the mountain.

And then there's the wooden house building on the north side of the layout as you're coming around.

Mak the loop around there and you get onto the big bridge.

And the big bridge is modeled after the Golden Gate but it's faded so I call it my Scarlet Gate Bridge.

And ah, you come back through the yard and come around.

The fourth line is a trolley line that can run up to four trolleys independently.

They are again all signal blocked with the ability of two trolleys in stations at either end two passing in the middle on a passing siding.

The come into the stations, stop and the other two take off.

All automatically using LGB EPL systems Narrator: Jim had extra help from fellow club members during the early stages of construction.

Jim Rusch: We actually came out and did a little bit of surveying.

Most of that took place when we were having the pond company out to dig the pond.

And we had them laser everything to work out the grades.

We kind of drove them crazy with, We need this rock here, and that one there.

And they had to fudge with us and make things fit in.

And they actually laid the tunnel piping because they had the big Cat and they could cover things over easier Narrator: Jim's focus is on the trains, and their operation.

He knew his shortcomings when it came to the gardening part.

Jim Snorek: I am not fussy about plantings other than let 'em grow.

If you ask me what I have out there, I couldn't really tell you because I don't know.

I buy 'em and I like 'em and they grow.

Narrator: So that's where the help of club member Leona Rusch was so valuable.

Leona Rusch: Jim had purchased how many of those--?

Donna Snorek: Hundred Leona Rusch: Miniature Japanese pine trees.

And he really didn't know where he wanted them.

He knew he wanted a forest because he had log cars, and he wanted to make a logging camp.

Then he said he wanted a little more green, so I brought some hostas, and little bit of the sedum, different kinds of sedum so they would bloom at different times and in different colors.

Narrator: Jim's railroad has a very special feature.

One that makes his life so much easier.

Jim Snorek: The one special feature that I like is we knocked a hole in the wall of the garage.

And I can bring trains right in, park them on a siding, and not have to take anything off the track and put them in boxes.

It just stays on the track.

I want to come out and run trains, I come out, open the doors, pull the train out & away I go.

Narrator: Leona Rusch can easily sum up the appeal of garden railroading.

Leona Rusch: Trains and gardens.

Some people think it's an odd mixture.

And in my neighborhood I know that they felt that was kind of an unusual hobby.

But I've felt that trains and gardens go together well because its like a moving sculpture.

In and out of the planting of the garden.

They go into a tunnel and then reappear to surprise the viewer of the garden.

Narrator: Jim Snorek and his friends have indeed created a work of art in his backyard.

(music) Narrator: Gumshoes gather at the Kempton train station in Pennsylvania to solve a mysterious murder.

Officer Justice: And when my reinforcements get he re, you're all going to jail!

Haha!

Good day citizens.

Narrator: On the Wanamaker, Kempton and Southern Railroad, or the W K and S, riders take on new identities as they try to solve this mobile murder mystery.

Oliver Blatt: You sir, are a member of the chipmunk chess club.

Oliver: It's called The Great Moonshine Mystery.

And it's an interactive murder mystery that takes place on the train.

Narrator: Every year, longtime volunteer Oliver Blatt shows off his creative side when he writes and directs a new play just for the train.

He says it gives riders a unique experience they can't find anywhere else.

Oliver: I think this is the only place that I know of where the show is completely interactive on a train.

What happens is as guests arrive here, we ask them to forget their identities.

Everyone in the show gets to take part in the show.

They all have new names.

Officer Justice: You are going to be part of the O'Riley clan.

And you are also going to be a part of the O'Riley clan.

Oliver: Some people have lines to say- Lurline: Oh!

Now I'm scared!

Guy: Don't worry.

I'll protect you with my strong, manly arms.

(audience laughs) Oliver: Some people get to sing, some people get to stand up and read poems- Group Reading: We'd like to play games; Especially with you.

Oliver: But it's a lot of fun.

Granny: Oh, Billy Mays!

(audience applause) Narrator: The railroad got its start in the late 1800s by shipping Pennsylvania coal to Delaware.

But by the 1960s the trains were being used less and less.

So in 1962, a group of investors decided to buy some of the track and form a tourist railroad.

Today, the investors are the hobbyists and volunteers who run the trains.

Jim Krause is the general manager of operations at the W K and S. He and his fellow train lovers are on a mission to ensure that the trains stay open for everyone in the community to enjoy.

Jim Krause: In 1963, original investors started it as an amusement park essentially.

An entertainment facility.

They actually sold stock and you can still buy stock in this railroad.

Now is it something that you are going to trade publicly in New York?

No.

But, you can buy stock now and that was simply to build up capital.

Narrator: The whole show lasts about 1 ½ hours and on the way, riders meet a few interesting characters.

Lurline: Nigel!

Keep talking!

Officer Justice: Now where's the shine?

Narrator: Like Officer Justice ...

Officer Justice: The Shine!!

Narrator: Granny... Granny: She might be as dumb as a box of rocks, but she is kin.

Alright.

You best take care of her, Alright?

Narrator: Billy Bob... Billy Bob: At least we don't have to worry about Detective Brass Badge taking us all to jail cause she's not on this train tonight.

Lurline: You look really good!

Narrator: And Lurline... Lurline: Like a hunka, hunka burning love real good!

Granny: Granny needs help!

Let's go!

Narrator: Still, there's more than one secret on this who done it ride.

Oliver Blatt: But this is a moonshine mystery so we will stop the train.

We'll stop at the secret still site along the tracks tonight.

So we will find the moonshine tonight.

But we-it's up to the audience to figure out who done it.

Lurline: I thought I heard a noise!

Granny: Uh!

It's probably the little people having an argument in your head!

Now let's go!

Narrator: But a lot goes into bringing this mystery to life year after year.

Everyone here is a volunteer.

That means that all the proceeds from the show go right back into the trains.

Jim Krause: We find things that the community seems to like.

We ran our murder mystery train last night.

The community loves it.

That's what we do (audience applause) Jim Krause: We have the Christmas trip.

We have our harvest moon trip.

That sells out.

We now have a wine and cheese train.

That sells out every year.

We have our annual kids fun weekend.

We try to maintain ticket prices at something the community can afford.

Not everything is about the dollar.

Narrator: Though the annual murder mystery is just one of the special events hosted by the W K and S, each ride offers guests a fun way to enjoy this historic railroad.

But it's the murder mystery that keeps citizen sleuths coming back every summer.

Oliver Blatt: We hope that they have a good time.

We hope that they can forget about their troubles for a few hours and just get into another world that we've created for them.

Granny: We can't even find where Lurline put that sh ine on the train.

Now that's a bad thing.

Narrator: And with these lively characters, it's easy to leave your worries on the platform.

Dave Baule: Hi, I'm Dave Baule- We've always loved to feature unique stories about trains, layout owners, travel destinations and tourist lines...

But the segments that demonstrate a love for railroading history especially in the face of adversity always mean the most to me.

That's the premise behind our next Classic Trax piece.

Keeping a tourist train in operation for 140 years is quite the challenge- But bringing one back from near total destruction, like the Wilmington and Western- well, that takes real dedication.

(train bells) Narrator: Traveling through a lush and gentle landscape is a vintage railroad born of the Industrial Revolution, a time of booming business in this Delaware valley.

While the industries have faded, the scenery remains.

And today, the journey is taken purely for pleasure.

The Wilmington and Western Railroad is located just outside of Wilmington, Delaware, close to the Pennsylvania border.

The railroad was built in the late nineteenth century to service the water-powered mills that lined the Red Clay Creek.

David: There were grain mills, snuff mills, rolling mills and the railroad Saw an opportunity to service these mills on their way to Landenburg, Pennsylvania.

Narrator: Today, the Greenbank Mill still stands as a living history museum.

One of the early mill owners along the creek was named Dupont, a family that grew to prominence in the area, and continues to have an impact on the railroad.

David: There are several Dupont estates that are peppered throughout the valley and the railroad will actually cross two of those private estates.

(All Aboard) Narrator: Since 1966, visitors have been eagerly boarding the train with their picnic fare for the daily ten mile trip from Greenbank Station to Mount Cuba, following the Red Clay Creek along the way.

David: The unique portion of this valley is that it's a location where the Piedmont and the coastal plain come together and we'll see that with the ride up the line.

We cross the river several times.

We will go through some serious, some very serious rock cuts that the railroad had to blast out in order to get through there.

The railroad line follows the Red Clay Creek so we will snake back and forth and meander to the left and to the right and to the left just to get to Mount Cuba and once we get to Mount Cuba, again it's on this private estate, it's very quiet and peaceful and we operate this small picnic grove right next to the river.

Narrator: A picnic by the train is a tradition dating back to the 1890's, when the railroad brought city dwellers here for a day in the country or a visit to nearby Brandywine Springs, a Victorian amusement park that closed in 1923.

Today, with the help of eighty volunteers, the railroad operates close to four hundred excursions year-round, including a variety of seasonal events.

The flagship of the Wilmington and Western is steam engine number 98, built in 1909 by the American Locomotive Company.

David: The 98 has just recently undergone a restoration, a lot of boiler work at a cost of half a million dollars and the 98 is one of the reasons I think a lot of rail fans and people do come to see it, it's one of the few American class locomotives operating in the United States today.

Narrator: Another gem in the collection is this self-propelled doodlebug, built by Pullman Standard in 1929.

David: It was operating in Pennsylvania not too far from here.

We acquired the machine in I believe it was the late '80s and had it restored through a grant from the Revere cookware corporation and that's why it's now called the Paul Revere #4662.

Narrator: Throughout its history, the railroad has depended on its close proximity to the Red Clay Creek.

But in recent years, that relationship was put to the test when the railroad was struck by not one but two natural disasters.

The first, in 1999, when Hurricane Floyd tore through the Red Clay Valley, flooding the area.

David: As a matter of fact the location that we're standing in was probably underwater as tall as we are.

It wiped out two of our wooden trestle bridges and twisted and bent four others.

Narrator: It took a year and half to repair the bridges and restore service but the railroad managed to survive its worst disaster, or so they thought.

Four years later, almost to the day, Tropical Storm Henri stalled over the Red Clay Creek, sending twelve feet of water rushing down the valley.

David: What happened in '99 was an afternoon rainstorm compared to what happened with Henri.

Narrator: The flood waters took out six bridges and miles of roadbed.

But, thanks in part to David's intense fundraising, the railroad slowly recovered.

It took four long years to rebuild but today, the bridges are state-of-the art.

David: The new bridges are actually drilled into the earth, they were rock sockets drilled in sometimes as much as nine feet into the bedrock and then concrete columns poured in with steel reinforcing bars from the bottom of the bedrock.

(Birthday party) Narrator: Today, Mount Cuba is once again a perfect spot for celebrating and relaxing, where kids young and not so young can enjoy a picnic along a peaceful waterfront, with the train, as always, nearby.

David: This railroad is a unique gem for the state of Delaware and for the surrounding community.

Narrator: The train has indeed become a treasured part of this community.

Its dramatic story of survival adds yet another layer of history to the Wilmington and Western experience.

David: The scenery, the right-of-way, the beauty of what we're traveling through is unmatched on many tourist lines it's a magnificent right of way.

Spencer: The scenery that one experiences from looking out the windows of the Wilmington and Western teems with American history- Over 100 years of railroading in the cradle of the revolutionary war makes this quite the memorable trip.

Well, that's all for this episode.

Please join us next time for more, Tracks Ahead.

(theme music) Announcer: Tracks Ahead.

Brought to you by: Kalmbach Publishing Co. and its on-line video magazine, Model Railroader Video Plus.

Walthers.

Manufacturer and supplier of model railroading products, serving the hobby since 1932.

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