# Open House, June 29, 2014



## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

OPEN HOUSE AT THE THE EAST TENNESSEE AND 
WESTERN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA RAILROAD (ET&WNC RR)

by catherine and nagasiva yronwode

Our layout is a fictitious model of the steam-era ET&WNC in Tennessee and North Carolina which has been blended into a number of Northern California narrow gauge scenic routes. With about 300 feet of track, it is a compact, track-powered layout, running through and around two hills and several valleys underneath a redwood tree, a 1:1 scale cross buck signal with operational lights and bell, and a magnolia tree. There are hundreds of plants on the layout, and many buildings, vehicles, and figures, all based in the 1927-1941 era. With 2 tunnels, 6 iron bridges, and 4 wooden trestles (the longest of which is a 13-foot-long S-curve) the focus is on running trains, not on switching operations, and there are plenty of good locations for photography and videography. Industries include a gravel mine and rural agriculture. A small town, Three Bridges, serves the populace, and there is also a pleasant picnic area up atop Lookout Mountain at Rock City, overlooking Fern Gully and the town of Linville. We enjoy the creation of self-similar replications, so our actual barn and signal are reproduced in miniature on the layout.

We are, like many garden railroaders, a bit loose on scale, featuring 1:22.5 ET&WNC Bachmann Annie locomotives, Jackson-Sharp passenger cars, and freight cars; an entire consist of 1:29 USAT billboard reefer rolling stock, and 1:24 die cast autos and trucks. Our guideline is the "ten foot rule" and our desire is to have fun. Built on sharply sloping ground, the site is designed around a small rock bench and patio where we can sit, drink coffee, and work via wi-fi on our laptop computers. 

We broke ground for the ET&WNC less than 6 months ago, and many helpers have contributed to the rapid development of the site. The original layout design, including rock work, was by Nancy Norris of GardenLines.net and Garden Railways Magazine. Layout expansion, construction of trestles, tunnels, hand-spiked track, rock work, and scratch-built buildings, roads, and fencing are all under the direction of Daniel Smith of DanielSmithRailroad.com in Prunedale, California. 
Don Herzog of Miniature Plant Kingdom in Occidental supplied -- and planted! -- almost all of the vegetation. Lighting and circuitry is by Eric Moe of MoeTrains.com, and Bo Maldonado has provided detailed scenic painting and rock work. 

Our layout is open to the public during shop hours at the Lucky Mojo Curio Company (7 days a week, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM) and we run trains for the enjoyment of the public every Saturday and Sunday. 

On Open House day we are supplying food and drinks and socializing with train folks. We can give you a tour of our shop, if you are interested, and also of "The Smallest Church in the World," which is located on our property. In addition, we can give you a visual tour of the new REGRS web site -- at REGRS.org -- which we are developing for the club! If you are a member of REGRS and have photos of your layout, we will tell you how to send them to us so that we can showcase as many of them as possible in the months to come.

Please feel free to bring your own trains to run, either battery or track power.










DRIVING DIRECTIONS:

We are located west of Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, California, on the premises of the Lucky Mojo Curio Company, a block and a half north of Highway 116 in the town of Forestville.

Our address is
6632 Covey Road
Forestville, California 95436
(707) 887-1521

Take California State Highway 101 to Santa Rosa, California.

From Santa Rosa, take Guerneville Road west to the end of the road at a 'T' intersection with Highway 116. Turn right (north) on Highway 116 and proceed to the town of Forestville.

As you enter Forestville, the road makes a sweeping uphill left-hander, and at the crest of the hill you'll see Carr's Drive-in on the right. This is the junction of Covey Road and 116.

Turn right (north) on Covey Road and pass between two churches (a large tan one on the left and a small white one on the right).

Cross Center Street and continue for one-half block and on your left you'll see a post with the number 6632 in white lettering on green tiles, atop a larger black-and white sign that reads, "Drive Slowly. Watch for Animals."

Enter the driveway, which is lined with rose bushes, apple trees, and fence posts on which there are nailed abalone shells. Drive by the "To The Trains" sign to the top of the hill and park by the big old barn, where an old yellow and black sign says "Customer Parking. Unauthorized Cars Will Be Towed Away." We have VERY LIMITED PARKING so if there is no place for you, park in one of the church parking lots in town or on Center Street, and walk in, please. 

If you get lost, call the Lucky Mojo Curio Co. for help. The number is 707-887-1521.


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## Dick Friedman (Aug 19, 2008)

I've wondered about your progress since your name first appeared on this list. Not sure I can make it, though I sure want to see your efforts.

That's the first weekend AFTER the West Coast Regional Meet in Sacramento. After getting 35 layouts open, visiting open layouts, and planning to go to Los Angeles the following week, I'm not sure I can squeeze it in.

Sounds like fun!


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Catherine:

You might want to check the phone numbers in your previous post. One is 667 and the other is 887. Otherwise they are identical.

Chuck


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

Chuck, 

Thanks for catching that. The number is 707-887-1521, and i edite the post to reflect that.

The REGRS web site is now up and running with six starter pages. More to follow ... at http://regrs.org

cat


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

The most AMAZING thing just happened!

A HUGE THANK YOU to our friend Steve who landed a job in a wholesale nursery and laid on us the gift of 14 flats of 4-inch pots (16 pots per flat) of amazing flowering zinnias, marigolds, dianthus, dahlias, lobelias, African daisies, and other excess stock the nursery was dumping -- about 224 full grown blooming plants, each retailing for about 3.00. 

Nagasiva and i, with the help of our shop employee Dave Skarr, planted out 100 plants yesterday, plus a flat of money wort ground cover i already had on hand. We have 124 more plants to go, plus another flat of ground cover. 

This was such a blessing, because OUR RAILROAD OPEN HOUSE IS JUNE 29! This event is sponsored by REGRS, the Redwood Empire Garden Railway Society. 

If you are in the Forestville area, come by to view the layout, eat hot dogs and barbeque, and run trains. 

Here is a generic picture of the kind of zinnias Steve brought us, and no, these are not going on the layout! They are as tall as two-storey buildings on the layout! LOL! They are lining the other side of the path, in clumps. But the litltle blue lobelias are all over Roan Mountain now, looking sweet in the dappled shade.


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

Well, today nagasiva, Dave Skarr, and i planted out 170 flowering annuals, the second half of the amazing donation of 14 flats of plants from our friend Steve -- and just in time for next Sunday's June 29, 2014 OPEN HOUSE, BARBEQUE, and MONTHLY TRAIN MEET of the Redwood Empire Garden Railway Society, which is taking place at Lucky Mojo. By sundown we had planted out all the marigolds and dahlias that Steve gave us. They look like this. 

If you live in the area, do drop by on January 29 -- the Lucky Mojo shop is open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, as always. The train club folks will drift in and out from 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM. The barbeque will be set out around 1:00 PM. Free food and drinks, bring trains.

It'll be a nice day ... a small, new layout, with relaxing Bachmann Annies, pretty well detailed in my opinion, and all these flowers on the surrounding paths 










This is how the layout looked about a month ago, when Becky Herzog snapped this image. We have come a LONG way since then, i can tell you.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

catherine yronwode said:


> Chuck,
> 
> Thanks for catching that. The number is 707-887-1521, and i edite the post to reflect that.
> 
> ...


Catherine,
I applaud you for posting the invitation online - but it is a bit risky to post all the details. They are now online forever. It may be safer to post an invitation and ask folk to email you for the address, etc.


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Pete:

For most situations like this I strongly agree with you, specially with regard to private residences. However in this case I believe that the location and contact information are for her place of business, an already public place.

Chuck

I try very hard not to be too specific about my exact location, other than northern Virginia or Sun City, Arizona.


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

Hi, Pete --

Chuck is right; this is a commercial layout, next door to a metaphysical shop that is open to the public 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM seven days a week. The property is designed around a series of semi-public attractions -- a full-scale walking labyrinth, the smallest church in the world, tarot card readers on site, the vintage-look shop, flower gardens (300 roses and thousands of flowering bulbs), the Rock City barn, the train layout, Burma Shave signs, a full-size wizard statue, a blue bottle tree, a real skeleton in a coffin, a live radio broadcast every Sunday, yearly magic teaching event, and so forth. We run trains on Saturday and Sunday, 8 hours a day, for the public. 





































cat
ET&WNC
Eastern Tennessee and Western Northern California R. R.
"Take the Redwood Route to Sunny Tennessee"


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Love the pic of see Rock City, Have you been there? I was last week. Several places had building for sale with that ad. Later RJD


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

Hi, aceinspp --

Well, my fascination with the old Rock City barns is just one of those things, i guess. I used to live in and travel throughout the South and saw those barns all over in the 1960s and 1970s. So i painted my own full-sized barn that way, just because i liked the look.

Then we put a miniature of our barn on the layout:










This model was scartch-built by Daniel Smith (R) and painted by Bo Maldonado (L).

And, strangely, no, i have never been to Rock City!

cat
ET&WNC RR
East Tennessee and Western Northern California Railroad
"See Rock City by Train"


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## Russell Miller (Jan 3, 2008)

*All I can say is WOW!*

I just returned home after spending the entire day at the wonderful layout that Catherine and her crew built over the past 5 or so months. All I can say is WOW! This is truly a special layout and the attention to detail is outstanding. They had trains running the entire day with only a few minor hiccups. I was there from 10:30 to 4:30 talking, lots of talking, and taking photos. I really like to see how the layout changes as the sun moves across the sky. Thank God for the wonderful provisions supplied during lunch to everyone in attendance as I don't think anyone wanted to leave! Catherine and Nagasiva Yronwode are wonderful hosts. This layout is over 1.5 hours North of me and was totally worth the drive. I hope to have this layout included in the pre-tour for the 2016 NGRC.

I've attached 10 photos. I particularly like the 2 barns in one shot. This was a difficult layout to shoot as the train constantly traveled between bright sunlit areas and dark shadows caused by the surrounding trees.

Russ Miller
NGRC 2016 Chair
2014 BAGRS President


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

Russ, thank you for those amazing shots! You found angles and views on the ayout that i have never seen before! Your comments are very kind, too -- we are total newbies at this and everyone has been amazingly helpful as we got our dream trains up and running. Thank you so much for making the drive and sharing this pictures.


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## gardentroll (May 21, 2014)

Russ, thanks very much for taking these photos, they're exquisite! You definitely have an eye for what makes a layout look spectacular. It was a pleasure to meet you and so many others who came by today, a treat.


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## noelw (Jan 2, 2008)

Nice photos C_atherine Yronwode. Did you get more photo on your open house? _

_Russel M. Tks for posting your.. nice shots._


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

Great layout. Love the barns. The billboard train really looks great snaking it way through the village.


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Truly a very nice looking RR. Thanks for the pics Russ.
Catherine, always nice to hear how one came about modeling a particular building. 

We have a barn here in town that has the Rock City logo painted on it and some folks had tried to take issues with it as un sightly. Needless to say they lost out on having it removed. Now days they no longer use barns, they are using billboards. 

As the story goes the folks that had Rock City would hire mostly college kids to go around and paint the barns with cheap paint furnished by them and if the folks that owned the barns agreed to let them paint them, It was done free to the owners. Later RJD


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

Hi, aceinspp --

Actually, according to company records, there was only ONE painter for all those barns, and he was not a college student. His name was Clark Byers. There is a lot of information about him and his work, including an interview on his 30 years as a Rock City barn painter, in the book "Rock City Barns: A Passing Era" by David B. Jenkins. This is a fantastic book, by the way. It came out in the 1990s and it photographically documents every single See Rock City barn the author could locate. Clark Byers kept logs on all the barns he painted on file cards ... kinda the same way the Burma Vita company kept logs on all of their their Burma Shave signs. Clark Byers' logs tell us the history of each barn, its location, its owner, and every date he repainted or touched it up. True Americana.


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Interesting. Thanks for that info. Guess the rest was folk lore. Later RJD


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## Russell Miller (Jan 3, 2008)

Kat… I see there is a forest fire in Forestville… I pray that you and your husband are OK.
Russ


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

We are fine, but sirens were going off all around us. Kinda scary. We have a volunteer fire company here and we rely so much on their showing up when called! They use modern cell phones, but still augment it with the firehouse siren and, of course, the sirens on the trucks. Everyone in town knows when there is a fire! 

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Forestville-fire-destroys-cabin-damages-others-5727266.php

Thanks for your concern.


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## Doug C (Jan 14, 2008)

Wow that is a very impressive realistic lookin' layout !! 

Thanks for taking the time in posting the pics Russ.


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