All aboard! Couple creates intricate tiny train world in Alberta backyard
For nearly 10 years, Tom and Judy Keeler have gone full steam ahead in creating, building and maintaining the Green Creek Railway.
The couple has transformed their backyard in High River, Alta., into a miniature world filled with trains, homes and scenes of little people.
It's a labour of love and a big job to keep their miniature backyard model train set and surrounding garden scenes fresh and in working order.
"I really enjoy getting the plants in the right positions and creating the scenarios," Tom Keeler said.
The Keelers said they were inspired when they lived in nearby Okotoks nearly a decade ago. They transformed their yard into to a model train track world after visiting Ultimate Trains in Nanton.
"I thought at first that maybe we'd just put a train in a circle around the pond for the grandkids," he said. "One thing led to another and now it's a pretty big layout."
'Big imagination' required
Green Creek Railway, as they call it, isn't all trains. There are miniature people, houses, farms, school yards and more, all in keeping with a 1930s to 1950s motif.
"One of our favourites is the shop layout with the older cars," Tom Keeler said. "We just love putting out the figures here and each little scenario kind of has a story we imagine.
"And that's the thing, when you come here, you've got to have a big imagination."
A small town layout near the shop is lovingly known by the couple and their family as Kellerville.
"It's just a small town with lots of action," he said. "People are busy and having fun in the park."
He built much of the scenery himself using pre-made plastic kits and fancy bird houses converted to suit Green Creek.
While he maintains the infrastructure, Judy Keeler takes the lead on the train yard's foliage and greenery.
"You have to garden to scale," she said. "So a lot of miniature perennials, dwarf plants, and I try to look for everything that flowers. All our groundcover flowers. It's beautiful in June."
To make Green Creek Railway even more of an immersive experience, they also have realistic sound effects playing.
"I think a good garden railway needs a good farm yard, and we made sure we had a good farm yard in this railway. It includes electronic sounds of some cows mooing," said Tom. "The school yard also has sounds. It sounds just like a regular school house, kids playing in front of the school and having lots of fun."
Tom Keeler said all the trains also come with digital sounds, some of which can be changed at the Keeler's indoor navigator remote control centre.
"It just adds special effects," he said. "People really enjoy the sound of the old locomotives."
Over the years, the couple said, the railway and scenarios have evolved. They learned a lot about building their track while attending model train conventions in the United States.
"We're always adding or taking away," Judy Keeler said. "Buildings deteriorate, little people lose their arms in storms."
The Keelers have no plans to expand the track.
"We've pretty much got it to the size we want now," Tom Keeler said.
Every year the couple opens up their yard to family, friends and community members to check out the railway. They hold a scavanger hunt of sorts. Guests receive a questionnaire to fill out with details they can spot on the layout.
"That way they look at the detail and the trains as they go by and they really enjoy it," Judy Keeler said.
With files from Monty Kruger.
