By Randy Mower

Author  Bio Our garden railway club, the Susquehanna Valley Garden Railway Society based in central Pennsylvania, has grown about ten fold since the club's inception in 1995 to nearly 100 members.

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Our garden railway club, the Susquehanna Valley Garden Railway Society based in central Pennsylvania, has grown about ten fold since the club's inception in 1995 to nearly 100 members. One of our most popular activities are the public displays we set up throughout the year. We have been setting up an annual Christmas display at a local park for the past 6 years, a garden display at the York Flower show for the past 4 years, a display at the PA railroad museum for the past two years and a floor display at the ECLSTS for the past three years. Recently we were approached by the sponsors of the first annual Pennsylvania Garden Expo in Harrisburg, PA to build a display for their show in March. We agreed to build a large display for the four-day show that ran from March 13th to March 16th and it turned out to be the largest display we have built to date. The display was about 700 sq. feet in size with hundreds of live plants, and four trains running at once. Nine club members started construction around 9:00 am on March 12th. Lou Stahl, Joe Mower, Mike Oberdick and Randy Mower started laying track while Brian Fleeger and Lisa Boll started on the pond; Turk Russell and Jeff Shubert started building a mountain and tunnel by the waterfall area; and landscape designer Mel Shubert and Tom McCloud of Appalachian Nurseries started the landscaping. We had the track down by 1:00 pm; then we started working at shoveling yards and yards of bark. By 5:00 pm, we were putting down the buildings; and by 7:00 pm, we were done with the details and the finishing touches.

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We went with a logging theme for our main feature. We had a logging skyline feature, which Brian Fleeger built using scratch built and Ozark miniatures parts which used a donkey engine, and a Lidderwood log skidder scratch built by Randy Mower. Turk Russell and Jeff Shubert built a detailed logging camp and sawmill area and Turk ran a double headed logging train pulled by a kit-bashed three truck Shay and Climax he built. At one end of the display we had a small loop for Thomas the Tank engine and built a miniature "Island of Sodor" which the kids went nuts over. The promoters of the event told us our display was the hit of the show and people were gathered around the train display all day every day the show was open, sometimes it was 2 and 3 people deep. We answered lots of questions and gave away over 200 "Beginning Garden Railroading" brochures. We also picked up a number of new club members. Overall our display was a great success and a lot of people were introduced to our hobby.

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