Interest in model trains moves outdoors

“I’ve got the very smallest garden railroad,” Bruce Wilson says. It seems an odd acknowledgment, because Wilson grew up around trains, has had a model train in his basement for decades, and is a volunteer conductor of the miniature train that runs through O.J. Watson Park. He even dresses it up for the holidays.

But it may well be true that his garden railroad is among the smallest, at least on the Wichita Area Garden Railway Tour that runs next weekend.

It happened this way: Wilson had built two decks in his backyard in southeast Wichita – one off the dining room, and another off the back bedroom. In a small area between the two decks, he built a covered gazebo and planned to add a pond and a water wheel.

But then he found out about the local garden railway club, and the bug bit. Soon, the pond that he had begun to dig was filled back up to allow for an outdoor model train.

“Between decks, there’s about 10 feet,” explains Wilson, who is a retired insurance claims adjustor and supervisor but “piddles” enough to be able to build decks and a backyard workshop. “I laid track, and between the gazebo and the large deck I added an arched bridge. So the train goes under the bridge. Fourteen by 10 feet is all I’ve got out here.” He calls the space between the decks “Wilson Gap.”

Wilson has added buildings and characters to his rail layout, constructing a water tower and freight depot from scratch, and transforming birdhouses that he bought at stores such as Michaels into a church, two houses, a post office and a fire station.

Six garden railroads, including Botanica’s, will be on the Wichita Area Garden Railway Tour from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 19. Wilson’s is at 1041 S. Cooper; he and the others were also on the tour last year. The tour is free. You can pick up a guide with addresses and descriptions of the tour stops at hobby shops and garden centers. A copy of the guide is good for free admission to Botanica for the guide-holder and his or her immediate family.

Wilson is from Herington, where the Rock Island Railroad had a division point, sending trains either west toward New Mexico or south to Oklahoma and Texas. When Wilson’s dad got laid off from Boeing toward the end of World War II, he got a job as a fireman with the Rock Island, and Wilson remembers getting to hang around the trains occasionally.

For years, he’s kept a model HO-scale railroad in his basement, so taking it outdoors to the garden was a natural extension for him. And when he found out that volunteers were welcome to conduct the miniature train at Watson Park, he jumped at the chance. While the train is under repair right now, Wilson has the Friday shift (from 5 p.m. to sunset) and conducts whenever he’s needed. He even decorates the train for the holidays. Soon, he’ll be stringing orange lights on the roof, sitting a skeleton atop a hay bale as a spooky passenger, and affixing a skeleton to the front of the engine. “I tell the kids that’s what happens to people who don’t get off the track,” Wilson says with a smile. He similarly tells passengers at the back of the train – the back seat faces backward – that if the train runs out of gas, they’ll have to get out and push.

Of course, everybody who visits his home garden railroad wants to know when Wilson will be expanding it. Surely it won’t stay the smallest forever.

But he takes an unusual stand for a piddler:

“I’m not going to give up my backyard for my railroad.”

This story was originally published September 11, 2015 at 1:53 PM with the headline "Interest in model trains moves outdoors."