Dentist Ed Abate looked out the window of his comfortable, meticulously groomed home in Monte Sereno one day last summer and saw "45 or 50 people walking up the driveway." In fact, almost 700 visited the Abate's quiet backyard that day to enjoy the Rooster Creek Railroad, a miniature world crafted by Ed and his younger brother Richard over the last 7 years.
"It's a lot of fun," the brothers say in unison. "If we ever retire, we've got a terrific hobby," Richard says. "I'm glad we started when we did, though. The hard stuff gets harder as you get older."
The hard stuff involves grading a 6,000 sq. ft. corner of Ed's one-acre backyard, laying track, wiring, plumbing, compressed air controls for switches, moving stones and plants, installing pumps to keep the two waterways that give the Twin Rivers stamp mill its name, and placing strategic benches for visitors to enjoy the show.
Richard started by buying a "G"-gauge LGB train at Orchard Supply Hardware one Christmas and picked up a copy of Garden Railways magazine at The Train Store in Santa Clara. Richard's wife Carol complained that the train made it difficult to vacuum their Campbell living room. That May, Richard dragged Ed to a "G show"--a model railroad convention--in Long Beach. Vendors of locomotives, rolling stock, bridges, controllers, and scaled buildings, people, and vehicles occupied three decks of the Queen Mary. Ed ended up buying a couple of locomotives and some cars.
The big engine Ed bought, an Accucraft Denver & Rio Grande Western K-27, was sold as "museum-quality," and that was the problem--it looked too perfect. Richard found legendary model maker Bob Poli living just around the corner, and Poli taught the brothers how to age and weather their equipment to look just like the real thing. "It drove my wife Judy crazy," Ed recalled.
"At first, I was thrilled to buy things already made, because I was afraid to make things," Ed admits. Then he began buying kits. "Then the ego kicks in, and you think 'That's not so hard.'"
Bob Poli became the brothers' mentor. Richard recalls a trip to photograph a locomotive turntable. "Bob kept saying take a picture of this end, or that part. I asked why, and he said 'Because you need to know how many rivets.' I thought, if it has rivets, I'll put in rivets and be done." But the exact number mattered to Poli. Poli's precision began to rub off on the brothers, who were meticulous naturally.
"Dad always said, 'If you're going to do it, you do it right or you don't do it,'" Ed recalled. At 74, his eyesight is still perfect and he sees no reason to retire from dentistry. His sons, Gregory and Martin, are also dentists.
Richard and Carol's article about what came to be called the Rooster Creek Railroad--"I've always had a reverence for roosters," Ed says--is the cover story of the June issue of Garden Railways. Carol explains that the magical miniature world is like Brigadoon, the town that regularly re-appears, because Rooster Creek is reborn each spring.
Richard's daughter Adrienne Mallinger of Montera, and family grandchildren Emily, 18, Abbey, 16, Oliver, 13, Evan, 6, and Michael, 5, all help dress the scenes with people, dogs, and cars. Richard especially likes it when they create stories, like the motorcycle policeman hiding to catch speeders. Gardener Felipe Sanchez enjoys working on the railroad, as well. ("He's our unfair advantage," the brothers say.)
The layout rises from the roundhouse down by the swimming pool about 6' up to the back fence. The huge Union Ice Co. facility is on the outskirts of town. The bonzai pine trees on the other side of town, across the creek, lead naturally to a sawmill. Many places on the Rooster Creek line recall family businesses, particularly the Abate Bros. Dairy on the far side of the creek, and Carol's Bakery ("Fresh Daily, Baked with Love") in town.
Despite allowing occasional tours from the Bay Area Garden Railway Society (BAGRS), the Abates share their railroad mostly with their grandchildren and with fellow hobbyists. It's a lot of work to clean up pine needles and gopher holes. A recent addition: wireless video. One camera shows what the engineer sees as the train highballs down the track. Richard's favorite camera is one inside the roundhouse that captures the curious faces of the children peering in.
"I wish I could go to a place like Rooster Creek for the weekend," one visitor told the brothers.
There are a few backyard railroads in Los Gatos, and over 500 layouts in the entire Bay Area. Eighty were open during the national convention in Santa Clara last year. But relatively few have the imagination, the skill, and, frankly, the money to create such a complex microcosm. The Abate brothers have dreamed up their own world.
The search for authentic details never ends. On a recent trip to Silverton, Richard noticed that rolling tool carts in the roundhouse were stenciled with the number of the locomotive they were meant for. Soon, model tool carts were placed in the Rooster Creek roundhouse with numbers matching the engines.
"That's the thing: You're never done with a project like this," Richard says. "You can be done right now if you want to be, but you don't have to ever finish."
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