2022 National Garden Railway Convention: Part 2

What I enjoy most about going through all the pictures I took at the convention is seeing details I hadn't noticed. Most railroads have so much detail that there isn't enough time for me to capture it all while I'm there, so I take lots of pictures.

Gruenenwalt Berg Bahn

I really like the Grunenwalt Berg Bahn because it felt so natural in the garden. A 300 foot loop slowly winds its way throughout the garden, passing through and under mature plantings, and passing villages and other buildings like you see in this picture. Nearly everything except the track is scratch built, with many houses of fired clay and others of wood with tin roofs.

A beautiful curved arched truss passes over a dry stream bed.

And I also really liked seeing cows grazing in a field of dwarf marigolds. I didn't notice the quilts hanging on the clothes line until I was reviewing pictures.

A beautiful trestle and bridge crossing the dry stream bed. I was paying a lot of attention to different trestle styles as I was touring as I need to figure out what I'm going to be building.

Saint Mary and All Angels Railway

The Saint Mary and All Angels Railway is tucked into a rather small garden and demonstrated how a railroad can fit into whatever space you have. A giant statue of Mary looks down on passing trains.

My favorite feature was this collection of adobe buildings on top of a red rock mountain and a warehouse in the canyon below. If you look carefully you can see three nuns at the door of the church singing over the canyon.

And in another part of the garden a stream tumbles by a depot and grain elevator.

DB Railroad of Germany

Next up was the DB Railroad of Germany, another great reminder that a garden is just as important as the railroad that passes through it. Many, many tons of rock were placed to create a mountainous landscape that rises toward the back. Here we see a line winding around a pond stocked with koi.

And here the train passes over cataracts of the stream feeding the pond.

Two railroad bridges and an auto bridge pass over a dry creek in another part of the layout.

Most of the village residents seem to be hanging out in a Biergarten.

In another part of the garden, what was a concrete patio has been converted into a multiple track yard with an oil refinery at one end.

Colorado & Sparktown Railroad

The Colorado & Sparktown Railroad was definitely a wow moment and I wasn't surprised to learn that it had been featured in Garden Railways Magazine. A very long but relatively narrow layout along a slope with over 1,300 feet of track, the multiple loops allow for running up to nine trains simultaneously.

Can you see the train? There are so many manicured plants that at times the railroad completely disappears in the garden.

A passenger train crosses a small stream crosses one of the 19 bridges on the layout. I really like the cow pasture and the near-vertical wall of rock in the background.

This is the main street in the city of Sparktown, circa mid-1950s.

Another view of Sparktown showing the building roofs. A truly amazing amount of detail in modeling.

Here a Galloping Goose passes by a church on the edge of town.

A gorgeous lumber yard just outside of town.

And a tool shop along the tracks.

There was so much to see along the Colorado & Sparktown and these photos capture just a small fraction of what is there. Every aspect of this railroad was picture perfect.

Gold Dust & Red Rocks Railroad

A stream wanders through the Gold Dust & Red Rocks Railroad requiring multiple bridge crossings, all of which were scratch built. Lots of mature plants as well as this railroad was started 24 years ago. 

A key feature is a 40-foot long curved trestle that is double tracked on one end. Here a train is starting across the trestle, and note the arch bridge in the background.

Another view of the trestle.

I was planning on using bricks as a foundation for my trestle, but then I saw these custom made poured foundations and I think I might give this a try.

I didn't realize there was a connection between balloons and railroads, but I saw them so frequently on Colorado layouts that I think I need one now.