By Dennis Winger

Author  Bio With millions of adoring fans the world over, Dennis often seeks solace from autograph seekers by immersing himself in garden railroading.

With millions of adoring fans the world over, Dennis often seeks solace from autograph seekers by immersing himself in garden railroading.

"It just feels good to get away from it all and be with the little people," he revealed in a recent interview, "especially if they're around little trains and little buildings."

Dennis is 57 and has worked around railroading most of his adult life. He has been a licensed locomotive engineer for 13 years. He is currently employed by the California State Department of Transportation's Rail Division in the Operations and Marketing unit. Dennis also volunteers as a car attendant on the California State Railroad Museum's Sacramento Southern Railroad, and as a brakeman, fireman and engineer at Nevada Northern Railway in Ely, Nevada.

He was the co-founder of Sacramento Valley Historical Railways, a non-profit group that purchased and restored a Southern Pacific 0-6-0 to operating condition. The group also purchased the Woodland, California SP depot which is currently undergoing restoration and will serve as their museum.

Dennis was also co-founder of Yolo Shortline Railroad Company, an investor-owned railroad which began with 10 miles of track, one customer, and one 1939 GE 50-ton locomotive.

"We ran the trains and did our own track work, locomotive and rolling stock repairs, and business development," said Winger. "It was some of the hardest work many of us have ever known."

When he left after 9 years, it had grown to about 26 miles of track with 10 customers. The railroad roster had grown to include three GP9 locomotives and the SP steam loco. Yolo Shortline has since become part of Sierra Railroad.

Dennis started in N-scale with the requisite 4x8 layout which eventually grew to a 21/2 x18-foot layout in his garage. It was set aside during his early 1:1 scale years, and when he returned to model railroading it was in HO with a local modular group. This size, too, fell out of favor as, according to Dennis, "the couplers kept getting smaller and smaller." In addition, all the attention to minute details and the ever-increasing focus on scale realism began to take a lot of the fun out of the hobby for him.

Dennis was introduced to garden railroading by his father and he built his own outdoor railroad shortly afterward. The Folsom Eastern Railroad features 115 feet of single-track mainline with three tunnels, a snowshed, four bridges and a 20-foot long, two-foot high, five-foot diameter trestle. The ruling grade is "probably around 31/2 percent," which surprises many visitors with its requirement that they really control their trains, rather than just set the throttle and watch the train run around the layout.

"I do this to have fun," he said. "Any rivet counters are promptly run off the property!"

Dennis lives in Folsom, California with his wife, Susan Patterson, and their four cats, who occasionally let him in the house. He is an avid movie fan (mostly railroad movies, of course) and a free-lance writer.

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