Grab your conductor's cap and check out Colorado's trains By Claire Martin The Denver Post Deep inside the basement of Denver's Union Station are two rare, and rarely seen, versions of Colorado, fastidiously defined and threaded with built-to-scale miles of railroad track. The Denver O Scale Club's daunting layout, begun in 1933, suggests train routes from Colorado Springs to Buena Vista, a parched landscape scored by canyons and rivers, rumpled by faults and foothills. A few steps away is the Platte Valley & Western Model Railroad, "the Johnny-come-latelys," says club member Tarry Harrison, established in 1981. Its layout, inspired by Denver to Glenwood Springs routes, is smaller but extraordinarily detailed. There's a scale model of Union Station, a recreation of the now- demolished 16th Street viaduct and a painstaking replica of a Morrison formation uplift that's layered like a listing geologic torte. This display of the Colorado Midland Railway system, housed in the basement of Union Station, shows the attention to detail that drives model-railroad fans. (Denver Post file photo, Andy Cross ) "We try to be as accurate as possible, but with some — what would you call it? — poetic license," says Paul Smith, a board member of the Denver O Scale Club. The club's name refers to the railroad track gauge, built on an exacting 1:48 scale. Besides hewing to the scale that creates uncannily lifelike scenes, the club members scrupulously behave as if their tiny engines were as big as the ones exhaling noisily upstairs on the outside tracks. "When I started with the club, I asked why they didn't just pick up a train if they wanted to turn it around on the track, and nearly got my head bitten off," said Teresa Castaneda, an artist working on replicating the Cerro Summit, the layout's final feature. "They said, 'You can't do that! There's no hand of God that comes down and picks up a real train and turns it around!' Everything has to be as if these were life-sized trains." Smith concedes that "we are kind of sticklers for detail, but not all of us are rivet-counters." Fervid rail fans, he said, memorize the rivet patterns on railroad cars and complain when there are too many (or too few) rivets on a model train car. On the last Friday evening of each month, both clubs open their doors to the public. It's a rare chance to visit the depot basement, normally off limits, and see some architecture unchanged for decades, including the formidable old bank vault near the O Scale club's quarters. The PV&W club is housed in the station's former jail, the once-temporary housing for prisoners transported by train. At these open house evenings — the next one starts at 7 p.m. Feb. 29 — trains circumnavigate the tracks as club members point out various scenarios for visitors. Look for the welder's blue flashing light in the PV&W display. At the O-scale club, sharp- eyed visitors can find a wolf atop a ridge, a hermit's cabin with a bathtub in the front yard, vending machines at a tiny depot, raccoons and giant rats scavaging in a dump and the occupant of an outhouse with the door ajar. Learn more about the clubs by visiting their websites: pvwrr.org, and denveroscaleclub.org. Online. See a video of the O Scale club and the train in action. denverpost.com. Do the locomotion Follow other train buffs and rail fans steaming to Rails in the Rockies today in Estes Park, or engineer your own route to discover Colorado's iron-horse heritage. Here's a start: Rails in the Rockies Holiday Inn conference Center, 101 S. St. Vrain Ave., Estes Park; 970-586-5393 and estesvalley modelrailroaders.org. Open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today; admission $5 adults; kids free. Fifteen thousand square feet devoted to model railroad layouts and vendor displays, plus train races and other activities make this a mandatory annual event for model-rail fans. The layout landscapes feature stunning detail, including handmade gorges and tunnels, scale trestles, meticulous towns and scenes ranging from exquisite to disturbing. Limon Union Depot 899 First St., Limon; 719-775-8605; townoflimon .com/culture. Open Memorial Day to Labor Day; free This 98-year-old depot houses a restored railroad office (circa 1970), four rail cars, a 1914 rail lunch-counter diner and a working N-scale model of Limon's rail yard (circa 1940). Don't miss: The canary-yellow Union Pacific caboose in nearby Railroad Park. Colorado Railroad Museum 17155 W. 44th Ave., Golden, 303-279-4591; crrm.org. Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; $8 adults, $5 children Colorado's best-known repository of everything railroad-related is a replica of an 1880s depot. The collection includes thousands of photos, documents, artifacts and ephemera of railroad history. Trains range from palm-sized to retired engines, passenger coaches, reefers, freight cars, observation cars and cabooses outside the building. Ridgway Railroad Museum 150 Racecourse Road, Ridgway; 970-626-5181; ridgwayrailroad museum.org. Open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday in winter, and daily between Memorial Day and Labor Day; $7 adults, $4 children Retired engines, cars and cabooses, and a respectable archive of documents and artifacts especially strong on the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, which originated in Ridgway. Rail fans gather here every September for Ridgway Railroad Days, which offer guided tours and day hikes on old railroad routes, and a narrow gauge railroad symposium.
