It takes us hundreds of man hours to clean
up the winter time mess and get ready to
open in the spring
If you are visiting in the upper Feather River Canyon such as Portola or the resort town of Graeagle and you would like to see the Feather River and Plumas Western G Scale Model Railroad and museum located in Blairsden, which is just a few miles west of Portola, contact us in advance to make a reservation. Let us know the date or dates that you will be in the area and we will set up a time for you to come and visit us.
Every year we do have a number of groups coming to visit us. We also have open house during the three day Labor Day Weekend in September every year. During our open house or when groups come to visit we try and arrange to operate as many model trains in the gardens as possible. The more lead time you can give us before your visit the better changes are that you will see several model trains running through the gardens and forest.
Since we are not open on a regular schedule and it takes a day or two to clean up the pine needles that fall from the trees, the more lead time you can give us the more enjoyable will be your visit.
It takes us hundreds of hours each spring and early summer cleaning up from the winter storms so we are closed to visitors from around November 1 to May 1. If we had a hard winter sometimes we are not ready to accept visitors until June 1.
Chris Skow, retired Western Pacific/Union Pacific Railroad conductor based out of Portola first started to make plans for his Garden Scale model railroad in 2006. But his interest for model trains in the gardens began when he was just a teenager growing up in Southern California in the small town of Apple Valley.
His parents would take the family to enjoy the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona every September starting in 1963. Chris would spend most of the day watching the model trains run at the huge Fairplex Garden Model Railroad located on the fairgrounds.
First established in 1924 and moved to its present location in 1935, it was a unique example of craftsmanship utilizing hand-made replicas of real railroad operating equipment; much of which were built by local high school students.
Today, there is over 10,000 feet of operating track. That is 55 G scale miles of railroad. This exhibit has over thirty sections with various operating equipment can be seen operating at any time, especially during the annual Los Angeles County Fair. The various trains and trolleys operate past several scenes depicting California history from the 1850s to present day, and wander through the mountains, over the lakes and streams, and through the gardens.
When Chris discovered the Fairplex Garden Railroad he was modeling in HO gauge in Apple Valley. He experimented with building a small HO model in the backyard running around a pond and waterfall. Then he took a step to larger models and started to build an O gauge layout in the garage. Before the layout was completed the family moved to a new home still in Apple Valley and the model trains went into storage.
Fast forward to 1967 when he graduated from Victor Valley Senior High School in nearby Victorville and during his 2nd year of college started classes at San Bernardino Valley College and also went to work for the Santa Fe full time on the night shift as a station operator and towerman. With holding down 18 ½ college credits and putting in 8 hours of work for the Santa Fe every night all model railroading had to be put on the back burner.
During his time at the Santa Fe he worked places like: West Yard Telegraph San Bernardino, West Yard Tower, Riverside Tower, Santa Ana Telegraph, Pomona Agency, Azusa Agency, Hemet Agency, and a number of other locations on the Los Angeles Division.
Little did he know that his last Santa Fe assignment was at Mission Tower in downtown LA in late August and early September 1969. With only two weeks prior to the start of his 3rd year of college a phone call came from a close friend who was a locomotive engineer based out of Portola for the Western Pacific. The question to Chris: “Would you like to go to work for the Western Pacific out of Portola” ? Needless to say the answer was “Yes”! Getting off work at Mission Tower at 8am he managed to be in Portola by 3pm the same day after a very long drive and was hired on the spot by the trainmaster. Chris was given one week to go back to San Bernardino, cancel his college classes, give notice to the Santa Fe, close out his apartment in San Bernardino, move to Portola and report to work by September 9, 1969. Jumping on his one way ticket out of Southern California he settled down in Portola in 1969 and then moved into his new home in Blairsden in 1984.
The early to mid 1980’s was a busy time for him and his many projects forced him to put model railroading on the back burner for awhile. A few examples of his extreme workload included becoming one of the founding fathers of the Feather River Rail Society and Portola Railroad Museum in 1983 plus building up the museum gift shop and display room from the ground up. If the 1983 projects were not enough the following year he broke ground on his new home in Blairsden as his own contractor then founded the railroad tour company guiding groups to Africa and South America. All of this had to be balanced between his runs on the Western Pacific Railroad as a conductor.
In 1993 he decided to settle on HO and build his layout in what is now his railroad museum room in his new home. Now Fast forward to 13 years when his tour company landed a contract to offer a post convention railroad tour for the 22nd annual National Garden Railway Convention being held in the San Francisco Bay Area in June 2006. Chris decided it would be fun to attend the convention and visit most of the garden railroads that were open to the convention.
During the convention he became hooked on Garden model railroading. One of the first things he did when he returned home to Blairsden is to start making plans to switch from HO model railroading to a new G Scale Model Railroad outside in his future gardens. He turned the HO model railroad room upstairs into a nice railroad museum and library. All of his documents, historical artifacts and books had been packed away in boxes since he built his new home and now most everything could be displayed. Below are several photos of his museum room which has a vast collection of railroad items and artifacts.
TOUR CONDITIONS PRICING - PLEASE READ CAREFULLY
Tour Pricing:
All tour prices are subject to change without notice, at any time. All prices based on double room occupancy. Those people that use a credit card for payments a 3% conveyance fee (The 3% fee has been suspended until further notice) will be added to the tour price. We reserve the right to change tour prices if necessary without prior notice.
