82-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, September 13, 1997
Trains Chug Through Spectacular Outdoor Gardens
JINNY WILT
Adams Co. Correspondent
YORK (York Co.) A trip to
Eugene Boll’s Southwestern-style
home overlooking a good share of
York County from atop a hill along
Ridgewood Road in Springetts
bury Township not only provides
the visitor with a breathtaking
view, but also the scene near his
house is inspiring.
8011, a member of the Susque
hanna Valley Railroad Garden
Society, which boasts about 50
members from eastern Pennsylva
nia, has plotted and planned and
built extensive railroad gardens in
his own yard.
He said the society numbers 15
garden railroad layouts among its
members with several in its ranks
just in the construction phase.
Cost of membership is just $4 a
year and the group meets monthly
at a member’s home on a social
basis. 801 l said the group is not a
formal organization.
“I think what’s pushing the
hobby is it’s a family thing. The
women plant the flowers and do
all the gardening and the fellows
run the trains. Most of the train
buffs for years had their trains in
the attic or the basement and the
old man went down and that was
the last you saw of him. In this
type of thing the whole family gets
involved,” he said.
801 l explained that a garden can
be installed inexpensively or “you
can spend a whole lot money.”
It’s an all-weather thing too,
801 l said. "You can take the
engines the trains are G gauge
and dip them in a bucket of
water and put them back on the
track.”
However, he noted that elec
tronics has made inroads into the
hobby and can be a problem
because of the moisture. “We have
cattle cars that have chickens,
turkeys, cattle, and pigs. It’s a
sound board and that board can be
a moisture problem. You must
protect it.” he said. Everything
else is able to stand up in wet
weather.
801 l started with his hobby, he
said, “Because we have a nursery
Springettsbury Mountain
Nursery and we have a lot of
dwarf plant material.” Garden
railroaders use the dwarf plants in
their railroads so it was the perfect
avenue for his business.
“The scale is 1/2-inch to the
foot, which means a 6-foot person
is 3-inches high, so your tree
would be small as would the
buildings,” he said.
His railroad garden started with
one engine given to him five years
ago as a birthday present from his
daughter. “She said, ‘Here, you
were talking about trains, here’s
an engine,’” he said as he
chuckled and then added, ‘That’s
how a lot of people got started.”
He laughs at how people in the
hobby start out with a small layout
and continually expand. He counts
himself among them because he
has had major expansion in the
past four years. He has 700 feet of
tracks in the one garden that mea
sures “80-to-90-feet long and
40-feet wide.”
As he takes the visitor on a tour
of his layout located on the side of
the hill just below his home, he
gets a twinkle in his voice as he
points out, “There’s Indiana Jones
being chased by a bear and Poco
hantas is down here in the Lost
River Canyon.”
Next, 801 l who worked at one
time in construction “and ran a
bunch of factories” moves onto
the main feature two trains sit
ting in a train bam over the tracks
and the various dwarf plants in the
layout that also includes a water
fall and large trestle bridge. He
built it all, even the Painted Ladies
Victorian houses that sit
inside the track. All are lighted
and at night he said when you sit
on the deck atop his house “it
looks like a little town.”
He notes that you can buy kits
for the houses, but they are made
in Europe and are either European
or Western style, he didn’t want
either one so he built his in the
Victorian style. One of the houses
is a replica of a home in the valley
below his property.
The garden also includes a
replica of the York Railroad Sta
tion on North Street in York City.
There’s also a firehouse.
801 l tells how track was added
yearly and finally when the area
was about covered with tracks,
plants, and buildings, his wife,
Mary, said, “Well there’s nothing
over here,” and he points to
another railroad garden up the hill.
“So we put the cog railroad in,” he
said with a chuckle.
This garden has a boulder he
dragged by tractor out of a
wooded area near his home sunk
three feet into the ground on its
end. On the end rising up from the
garden is perched a monastary
from which monks walk. Here
there is also a castle, which some
times finds its way to various
events in the York County area
such as the Christmas light show
at Rocky Ridge Park and the
spring garden show at the York
Fairgrounds.
801 l said requests for train lay
A monastery is built on top of a large bou
dragged by tractor from the nearby wooden
figures have acorns for heads.
OMESTEAD
NOTES
A small-scale train weaves through miniature garden plantings and bullt-to-scale
houses In one of several outdoor displays by Eugene 8011.
outs for area events have been so
numerous recently they’ve had to
refuse some.
One of Boll’s trains is a replica
of the Liberty Limited that used to
leave Washington, D.C., every
day at 5 p.m. and arrived in Chica
go 18 hours later. The Liberty
Limited had two engines as
does Boll’s in order to climb
the Parkton grade coming into
New Freedom as the train made its
way through York County, he
said
(Turn to Page B 4)
Ider, which 801 l
area. The monk
I
*l l^ s *"‘
* *v
Railroad
that has bean
light display
The houses, called Victorian Painted Ladles, were built
by Eugene 8011.
Is a cog railroad and has a ca
display at York County’s Christmas
tnnuaNy at Rocky Ridge Park.