By Mike Evans

Author  Bio I've been involved in model railroading ever since my older brother got a used Marx 027 train set when I was 4 yrs old.

Currently: retired
Formerly self-employed Real Estate Appraiser
Still active as an ordained deacon at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Anderson, CA

Railroading as my basic hobby (therapy):
( I also play a little golf, sometimes even break 100!)

I started as a 5 yr old kid with a Marx 027 train set inherited from my older brother. During the time my younger brother and I were growing up, we would join forces with all the kids in the neighborhood who had Lionel sets and on rainy days we wheedled permission from my mom to lay out all our track throughout the house. Those were the days of ozone in the air!

In high school, I converted to HO with the usual difficulty with brass track, fiber ties and old Varney locomotives. I put the hobby aside for a while and then with our first kids, and a new 3 car garage, I got started with the new N scale. As many from that time, I struggled with keeping it on the track and keeping the track clean enough to run.

After later moving to Anderson, I got involved with a HO modular RR club and was delighted to see all the major improvements that had been made such as nickel-silver flex track, reliable Atlas switches, and new locomotives that ran smoothly and pulled well. I was hooked completely again. It was about 2 years later that Bachman came out with their first Big Hauler G scale set, which I found at Costco during the pre-Christmas sales. WOW! It was big, it was radio controlled, and it was affordable!

Soon we had moved the HO club into permanent quarters and built an indoor G scale shelf layout all around the room. New goodies were coming out all the time from Bachman and Aristocraft and LGB had lots more in American prototypes. After we moved the club into a new shop building that we built ourselves from the ground up, we moved the shelf G scale layout and expanded it with ceiling hung bridges, some landscaping and new buildings. Soon we had the itch to build an outdoor version. We started with Micro Engineering aluminum 250 rail which we had used successfully indoors. Ok for a first attempt but a quick learning curve about washouts, keeping track from tilting in ballast, and weeds. Soon, we decided to expand, big time (the other club members had caught the G scale bug). From the initial 50' 332 size. We mounted it on both redwood fence boards and concrete roadbed which we hand-poured a few feet at a time. After another expansion, we had nearly 1,000' of track in place and were running the latest big diesels and sound-equipped steam.

I then became a homeowner again after about 10 years of renting in a duplex unit. Fortunately there was a nice yard just itching for a garden layout to be built. Having had such good success with the redwood fence boards as a roadbase, I initially built a simple loop and began running trains at home. First we killed all the lawn and covered the area with landscape fabric and small bark chips. After laying out the trackwork, we then planted many varieties of small plants; some were successful, some didn't work out at all. Avoid at all costs a variety called "wirevine" it looks good but can't be controlled.

Today, the layout in the rear yard is a double loop crossing over itself with an extension that runs all the way around the house into the front yard with another loop there. My wife liked the no-lawn effect so well with the opportunity to use ornamental small scale plants instead, so I had little difficulty in negotiating for the extra right of way. We have about 1,100 feet of track down and all the lawn is gone. The only problem now is leaves and acorns! But it is a real pleasure to host one of our local Shasta Garden Railway Society gatherings and let people run their big equipment and long trains.

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