Misty
Mountain Railroad
The
largest privately owned O-gauge railroad in the country. This
amazing layout includes representations of the Northeast Georgia
mountains from Atlanta to Blairsville.
Go south on U.S. 19/129 from Blairsville, turn left at Owltown
Grocery/BP station onto Track Rock Road, Misty
Mountain Railroad will
be on the right just before Alexander's Store.
Replica
of the Union County Court House
The quiet town of Blairsville, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of
northern Georgia, is an unlikely location to build a railroad
empire, unless you're Charles Griffin. Since he was a child riding
the Milwaukee Road, Charles has been enchanted by trains. Now in
retirement, he has turned his fascination with trains into a hobby
that has become an attraction drawing more than 8,000 visitors from
around the world to the "O" Gauge layout he named the Misty
Mountain Railroad.
Most of us are familiar with Lionel, the dominant manufacturer of
"O" gauge trains for most of the 20th Century. "O" gauge and O27
were for decades the most common size trains circling the family
tree at Christmas, until they were surpassed in popularity by the
smaller, less expensive "HO" gauge. But Charles likes his trains
big. And to his thinking, big trains deserve a big layout, so
that's what he built.
His display encompasses an entire floor of a building on the
Griffin property, with a central layout that measures 72' x 55'.
But the layout extends far beyond the main display to encircle the
entire room, including walls and floor, and soars to within inches
of the ceiling. This magical display is the result of 12 years of
planning, seven years of construction and the fertile imagination
of Charles and his fellow enthusiasts -- Ken Kluth, Don Morris and
mural painter Jim Fleming.
"In building the project, we never finished one section completely
first, instead we worked continuously on the whole layout as if we
were designing a three-dimensional sculpture," says Charles,
recalling that visitors often tell him that the entire room looks
like a work of art. "We wanted it to be different and have the
layout engulf you as you walk through it."
The Misty Mountain statistics tell the story of true dedication and
back-breaking work to bring a dream to life. The bench work (the
table, so to speak) has seven tons of lumber and there are 6,000
pounds of plaster in the construction of the mountains and scenery.
Fourteen trains can run independently at one time powered by eleven
transformers on over a mile of track. There are 12 bridges, all but
one handmade, four trestles and 15 tunnels. The bench work is so
strong that grown men can, and do, walk on it. Beneath the layout
are hidden trap doors for servicing the massive electrical array of
wires that help run the trains and illuminate hundreds of
buildings, signs and streetlights.
"This is my first and my last, so I wanted to do it right," say
Charles, who encourages everyone to give model railroading a try.
"We built this layout without any previous experience, so don't be
afraid to try and build one yourself."
DIY Network