Large Scale Central

Chicago Botanic GRR

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I visited the Chicago Botanic garden, north of downtown last week and found out they have a Garden RR display. From what I remember they can operate 18 trains at one time. each train has its own track, most are loops a couple of figure 8 and a several point to point. 1600 feet of track, over 5000 plants in 300 plus varieties. 50 US landmarks including Old Faithful ( a waterspout on a timer) a recreation of MT. ST Helens which “erupts” every 20 minutes spewing smoke fog and water. All the buildings are built with plant materials, and are close representations of the real thing, but I don not think they are to any scale, but that didn’t seem to bother me or anyone else

Almost all trackwork is places on wood and most of it has been sourced from the gardens.

this train is passing Mt St Helens

rolling stock is a mix of passenger trains and freight , plus a Thomas area, a couple of urban streetcars, and some ladybug things

I think the stick and twig trestles are really cool looking

Pay no attention to the beautiful ladies smiling at me, the bridge was huge, all stick and twig construction, but it did have 2 cables running underneath to keep things where they are in case some kid tries to jump and hang from the golden gate bridge

I thought it was a nice layout, I found out they had a company build the structures but didn’t ask who or what group runs or maintains everything. the did a great job, and it was nice to look at the plants and have cards to tell you what you are looking at. doesn’t do me a lick of good since I live in Peoria, AZ and probably nothing growing there will grow here, but it was a first class fun layout, and the whole place was worth the ride there.

Great looking layout Pete, Thanks for posting.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)