By Bill Dressler

Author  Bio Sixteen tons of wall block and 40 yards of fill later, there were trains on more than 500 ft of track in the garden, but no facile way to run them without lugging them from inside

Bill recently retired from a 30 year career supporting the safety of over-the counter medicines and cosmetic products and now occasionally consults in the consumer product industry to help support his model railroad/gardening addiction.

He maintained a childhood interest in O and HO model trains thru graduate school where he built an N gauge layout that folded against the wall in the living room of his apartment. Of course, young children brought a brief return to O scale but, somewhat to his dismay, the evolving computer toy generation caught the kids interest.

Train activities remained dormant for a while and, as a maturing homeowner, gardening enthusiasm grew from annuals and perennials to shrubbery and on to woodland plantings and formal garden structure. One day while perusing a gardening magazine, he was introduced to the concept of garden railroading.

Bingo!....this seemed a perfect blend of his interests and, as retirement approached, plans were laid for a small garden railroad that could be readily constructed and maintained. Sixteen tons of wall block and 40 yards of fill later, there were trains on more than 500 ft of track in the garden, but no facile way to run them without lugging them from inside.

An idea for a caboose operations/storage barn started as a whim but melded his other interests of carpentry and woodworking into the mix of retirement activities. The feedback and enthusiasm of other local club (CT G-Scalers) members added coal to the boiler and the undertaking described in the present article was completed. This season's activities include a caboose extension to allow a bigger storage yard and automated train control using DCC-Bitswitch TM technology.

Bobber Caboose

Hi, Bill - I absolutely love the bobber caboose. My wife and I are having a home built for us on the North Shore of MA, and I'm considering something similar (albeit to be built by someone more talented than myself). I was wondering if you had located plans for the caboose or if you even sold plans. Again, great work!!

Jonathan Linde - 02/26/2008 - 07:03

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