Wild Eagle Rail Road

Dan Hoag’s Wild Eagle Railroad
Established 1997

This railroad began as a few small loops around a pond in the backyard. It didn’t take long for it to grow into one of the largest and most elaborate garden railroads that you will find in the Phoenix area, with over 500 feet of track.

The railroad snakes its way through series of towns in various geographical settings, representing any/all time periods. There are three loops (all connected), switches, tunnels, and sidings, each with their own role to play in the operation of this railroad. There is also a cog railway (going up the mountain), and several reversing units working nonstop in both major sections of the railroad. The railroad has multiple power sources; battery power for the main part of the railroad, and track power for the two cog lines and the reversing units.

Wild Eagle Railroad’s centerpiece is the large waterfall, which is spanned by a Hell Gate Bridge. Both large sections of this railroad are covered with shade-cloth awnings, which enhance the vegetation and beauty of the setting. The miniature trees, bushes, cacti, and flowers are all on auto-drip, which also assists in keeping things alive in the harsh desert sun. The buildings are a variety of scratch-built, kit-bashed, and custom made steel buildings, all beautifully detailed.

This is how all began…

Here we’re planning for the track lay out and how we were going to place the pond

After the pond was finish we built a concrete rim and steel retaining walls for the different layers.

 

 Next we wanted to add a tunnel. We dug some dirt and built a steel tunnel frame and covered with dirt.

 

Once the tunnel was done we finally laid the track down and added more detail to the scenery.

 

Some time passed and we added bridges, buildings and scenes to the layout.

 

 

 

 

A few years passed after we first started with our Wild Eagle Rail Road and it was so exciting and so much fun to build the first part that we wanted to add more to it, so we began with the expansion of our Rail Road.

We came up with the idea of building a mountain with several tunnels and a water fall.

Additional retaining walls were built in front of the existing walls to help support the weight of the extra dirt needed to build the “Shady Heights Mountain”

More steel structures were built for tunnels and steel posts were placed to support an awning. Also we shaped the waterfall and a lake at the bottom of the mountain.

Some track was laid down to make sure everything was going to work ok.

 

We finish shapping up the mountain by covering the tunnels and with the placement of big boulders. Then we added the “Hellgate Bridge” at the center of the mountain along with an Arched Deck Truss bridge and a Curved Open Thru Truss among others. Also the awning was installed.

 

Finally after all the hard work we were able to have some fun and run trains!

 

More detail was added to the landscape.

 

Some dioramas were created too.

 

 Additionally, this location features an overhead railroad both inside and outside the main house, which is the thrid pahse of the lay out.

Be sure to make plans to come by and see our railroad! We open up our layout to the public twice every year, and this year, we will host our 11th annual open house event. Check our website for more details! We would love to see you!

Dan and Patience Hoag

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