BELLA VISTA — When John and Maida Bennett were building their home on Loch Lomond, they had some special requirements that mystified the contractors. The landscape contractor couldn’t understand why they needed such a large level area instead of the more popular series of small terraces. Inside, the electrician wondered why they wanted electric outlets on the top of the kitchen cabinets.
It took 110 tons of fill and a seven-foot retaining wall to get the level space they needed, but the Bennetts have never looked back. They are model railroaders of the garden railroad variety.
While most of their railroad is in the backyard, there is a trolley running on top of their kitchen cabinets, thanks to the extra outlets.
Garden Railroads are usually G scale, which is a ratio of 24/1. Inside, the more common model railroad is an HO scale, which is 87 to 1. There are several other scales — all the way down to Z scale, where the engine is a couple of inches long, John Bennett said.
One thing that makes garden railroads unusual is that they are often maintained by couples, Maida Bennett said. Often it begins with the husband’s interest in railroads and the wife’s interest in the garden, but she’s met several couples where the wife ended up just as interested in the railroad.
After the Bennetts got their flat lot, she consulted a book about planning a garden railroad. They already had some of the pieces, but they had never displayed them. The book advised her to start with a small circular track and then let her imagination take over. While some HO railroads are very committed to authenticity, garden railroaders are more relaxed, she said. Theirs is more or less a 1920s scene, complete with a horse and buggy waiting by the doctor’s house. But when they acquired a diesel engine from a much later era, she didn’t hesitate to run it around the track.
Then there’s the dragon preserve. It started with the gift of one dragon and then became a “theme park” with a separate tourist train circling a mountain of rocks where the dragons can hide.
The book also had advice on plants, and the Bennetts went and found dwarf varieties of trees and shrubs. They planned to keep them small. They even planted some in pots so they can pull them out and trim the roots. But, despite their best efforts, some of the trees and shrubs are dwarfing the railroad.
Each winter, they bring the buildings from their village inside and let the leaves collect on the track. Maida, who built some of the buildings from kits, does the necessary repairs over the winter. Eventually, she will go out and blow the leaves off the track and see if there was any damage.
Some of the damage is caused by wildlife. When she first put her village outside, she left the doors to the buildings open so it looked like people were going in and out. That fall when she brought the buildings inside, she found them full of nuts and debris. The squirrels had moved in. Now she glues the doors and windows shut.
The scene changes every year, Maida Bennett says. A trolley car runs through the center of the scene which is rural on one end. They have a waterfall, with water from the nearby lake that ends in a tiny creek that returns the water to the lake. There’s a tunnel through a mountain. Watching the train appear and disappear through the landscape adds interest, she explained.
Like many other hobbies, model railroads can be as expensive as a hobbyist wants. Some people put a lot of money into their railroads; others make their own structures or do without. A good starter set can cost about $300.
The Bennetts belong to two model railroad clubs: The Sugar Creek Model Railroad and Historical Society in Bella Vista, and the Ozark Garden Railway Society which meets in Springdale.
They participate every year at the Sugarcreek club’s model train show which is a family event coming up in March. Several scales of model railroads will be represented. The Sugar Creek Club includes all types of model railroads and meets once a month at the Bella Vista Library. Everyone is welcome at its meetings, Maida Bennett said. Meetings take place on the fourth Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m.