Garden Railroading: Pics From Barry's Trips

Pics From Barry's Trips

Barry sent me a number of pictures and captions today which cover his wonderful experience traveling south of the border to visit some of our Large Scale friends! Below is Barry's message to me.

Hi Mike, as promised, here is the first installment of my pictures documenting my 3-1/2 hour wonderful visit to Tom and Gina's place in Morgantown, PA.

Tom and Gina's beautifully landscaped property.

Barry continues: My weekend trip started with the 3-1/2 hour journey to Eric and Diane Belusar's place in Oneida, NY. Some of the OVGRS folks will remember their visits to both the Ottawa and Belleville Invasions over the last 15 years or so before COVID.

I arrived just after lunch on Friday, the 15th, and later in the afternoon, we headed over to Roger Caiazza's place in Liverpool, just north of Syracuse, to pick up three big boxes of train stuff for Fred in Ottawa.

Saturday morning, I left Eric's for Morgantown, PA, and it did turn out to be exactly 4-1/2 hours, door to door, to Tom and Gina's amazing place. The pictures below were taken, just as I was about to leave in the late afternoon.

This (same) picture shows Tom's fish pond. I asked what was in it other than large goldfish, and his grandson showed me, by hauling out a 16" catfish! Unfortunately, I had not yet brought out my camera, and the fish was admired briefly before being returned to the water.

This picture shows that Tom is bigger than I am!

Here we see Tom and his wonderful wife, Gina. I twisted her arm ever so gently to come up to Belleville on August 18th.

The third picture shows the whole family that I was able to meet that afternoon. These were all taken on his front porch.

From right to left: Son-in-law Chris, daughter Timarie, Tom, Gina, Knox (4), Dylan (8) and Jackson (6).

When I arrived, Dylan was in a swim meet, and when they came back, she had won about 4 medals!

As you saw before, Tom has young grandchildren, and I'm sure they enjoy this area when not playing with trains.

This is an outside view of the greenhouse Tom built a couple of years ago.

These two pics inside show his watering system for the plants.

It is temperature controlled to a minimum 65F in the winter.

Above is a picture of Tom's house from the rear. Tom did a major renovation after buying the house. You can see the lower section with the roof and three gables. Tom added that all to the house, right down to and including the basement underneath. There is a fully equipped machine shop down there, even with a huge metal stamping press.

The protrusion on the left is a dining room, and the one on the right is a breakfast nook. The roofed area on the right covers the bbq and entrance door. The huge deck is all composite boards with aluminum railings.

Almost everything but the pumphouse and pond were built, including greenhouse, gardens, and of course, railroad, after my first visit about four years ago.

Lovely backyard, Tom!

Let's check out the old tree.

Why...it's a chicken coop!

Indeed, Tom and Gina have a perpetual supply of eggs! The chickens are found resting nicely in the shade!

Now we are looking at pics of his railway, which is quite amazing for a couple of years' work. I will give a description here, and then show the pictures.

It should be noted that many of the buildings have been strengthened against the elements, for example, with roofs made from floor or backsplash tiles, and walls made from "cement wallboard".

Others were built from scratch, with details such as plexiglas doors in the entrance to the large yellow building on one corner.

Tom is very resourceful, picking up vehicles at yard sales and flea markets, or making them himself.

Looks like a fun railroad to run, Tom!

Lots of trackage to delight operators.

The children sure look like they are having a ball!

Such a lovely property!

Tom and Gina's beautiful pond holds a lot of large goldfish and quite a few catfish up to 16" long!

Tunnel One

Tunnel Two

Tunnels One and Two

A lovely dry riverbed is found between the tunnels.

Tom's developing farm complex. The blue tank in background will be the town's water tower. Tom reclaimed the tank from something somewhere.

You may have noticed some switches to nowhere (yet!). Tom has a lot more to add to his railroad, hopefully to enable some interesting operating sessions. This is one of them.

The railroad road bed continues to expand!

"Help! Papa!" The boys had a bit of a territorial dispute between their two trains, and Papa had to come and fix it.

That's what grandpapas are for! They are lucky lads!

I am hoping to see Tom and Gina in Belleville on August 18th.

Cheers!

Barry

Barry tells us that after he sent out these pics and captions he had to get outside to set up his railroad for today's operations!

I`ve managed to find a few shots with Tom in them from one of our "Invasion" weekends back in 2017, five years ago.

I call this shot "Corner Gas" as these four handsome lads are standing near the corner of the property "having a gas" as they will be running trains in short order.

Tom is the tall lad in the grey T-shirt. He travelled up to Ottawa from his home in Pennsylvania.

From left to right we see Bernie, John, Tom and our good friend, the late Ken Brunt with Brunt's Brewery in the background (blue structure on the railroad).

We find Bernie, Johnny Chuff Chuff and Noelle with Tom in the far corner of the property near Bell Junction long before the large wooden fence went up!

A great shot of two great friends, Tom and Barry! (Hey, that almost sounds like the cartoon characters, Tom & Jerry!)

Tom crews with Steve in Ironwood.

The lads survey Nelson Yard as they await instructions from the yard master.

Tom works the interchange tracks at Bell.

Made in the shade in Mount St. Helens!

Tom and Steve hold the station track as they meet Malcolm's train coming in from the west.

Tom radios dispatch for clearance out from Ironwood. Note how he has moved his train over to the siding track to allow access for the Pool Train to reach the station.