Although I’m a die heart “G” scale nut, I’m also interested in 1.5" scale riding trains. There are a couple of guys in our garden club that also do the 1.5 stuff. One guy has a loop on his 5 acres in Washington. I really want to do a small battery powered locomotive, a couple of cars, and a small loop in my backyard for my grandkids. I’ve already started on the locomotive and drawings for the cars, a caboose and 2 flat cars.
I’ll post some pictures as I get something done.
Chuck
As well as the smaller stuff, I, too, have an interest in 7.25" gauge steam trains, but in 1/3 scale. That’s easy over here in yUK, where even our narrow-gauge trains are LOT smaller than anything you have in the US or Canada. Some of our Welsh NG trains run on less than 2 foot gauge…well, by a quarter of an inch, that is. 
I’m secretary of the Ramsey Miniature Steam Railway Society here in my part of the world. We have built everything ourselves, from our two Romulus locos to my 1/3rd scale dismal and all our trackwork. My loco is a stand-off, Rule 8 model of the outside-framed jackshaft-drive MoW loco ‘Harlech Castle’ built by Baguley-Drewry in the late 1960’s for Sierra Leone, but never went. Rebuilt to the required cab format, it runs on the Ffestiniog Railway in North Wales. My loco is powered by a pair of huge marine motor boat batteries. It weighs around 650#, and hauls our little trains with no effort at all.
I have many piccies of the little line, which can be seen on Google earth, as well as ground shots and mini-movies of the line in action. We run public on the 3rd Sunday of every month from March to October, and have three Santa Specials just before Christmas.
For Google Earth, see - 52 29 27.19N - 005 14.13W
Whilst over in Portland OR, I can often be seen in the loco shed of the SP&S E-1 Northern #700 down in Brooklyn Yard.
tac