Fayetteville

City Councilman Glenn Brewer never had an electric train as a child the

family couldn't afford it.

But he played

with his friend's trains and always wanted one of his own.

Brewer grew

up and married and the couple had three daughters; then, a boy was born,

and Brewer envisioned enjoying a train set with his first son. But alas,

it was the era of the slot car.

It wasn't until

about two years ago that Brewer, now fully retired, began to get involved

with building and running model trains.

Now, after

hours of work, his garden railroad is being viewed today by three bus

loads of enthusiasts in town for a national convention hosted by LGB Lehmann-Gross-Bahn

a major manufacturer of large scale trains.

"They're

fun," Brewer said of his new-found hobby with a shrug and a smile.

"This old gent's had a good time."

He started

going to meetings of the Garden Railroad Club of Atlanta after going to

a train show and getting the bug, Brewer said. The club gathers at a different

member's home each month to see what progress that member has made and

talk trains.

When it came

time to meet at Brewer's house, he confessed he didn't have a model railroad

yet. "They said, 'Well, we're meeting at your house anyway.'"

Since that

time, his project has blossomed. He built a raised platform for his trains

with landscape timbers and filled that with a couple of truck loads of

dirt.

The raised

bed is "the only way to go," he said. Earlier Brewer, who is

confined to a wheelchair, had laid out track in the usual way and found

it inconvenient to work on the set while crawling on the ground.

A side benefit

to the handicapped-accessible railroad he has built is that it's perfect

for his grandchildren. "Kids love it," he said, "because

it's right at their level."

Over the last

two years, he has built onto his platform a whole microcosm of the old

West, with railroad tracks winding through towns, farms, stations, churches

and pastoral scenes, decorated with a variety of miniature pieces and

dwarf trees and other vegetation.

The sights

aren't enough, though. Brewer's trains and the countryside they run through

also provide some of the sounds of the old days. When his trains pass

inside. A sign over the business next door promises complete road service,

with fast food from the saloon while your horses are changed.

A freight train

pulls a cattle car, and cattle sounds can be heard.

There's a passenger

train, a logging train and a freight train, all scale models of those

you would have seen if you had lived in the late 19th to early 20th century.

An automated switching and routing system allows them to run simultaneously

without colliding.

LGB, a German

toy company, started making trains in the early '80s, Brewer said, mostly

models of German trains. "But then they got into old Western trains

and found them to be very popular," he said.

Brewer's railroad

is ready for visitors now, just in time for today's convention. "If

you had come 30 minutes ago," he told a reporter, "it wouldn't

have been ready."

Now that it

is, he is ready to enjoy it. "All I want to do is come out here and

play with it and let the grandkids play with it," he said.

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