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April 16, 2007 - 6:59AM
‘Railroad Guy’ finds route to joy building backyard train exhibits
Paul O'Neill, Tribune
When Rick Cartwright talks about trains, the excitement in his voice evokes that of a young child receiving his first toy train. Cartwright makes a living building backyard and garden railroads, and that boyhood excitement hasn’t waned a bit.
“I have more fun in a day than most people have in a year, and it ticks off most of my best friends,” he says.
An obsession for trains of all shapes and sizes keeps “Rick the Railroad Guy” younger than his 52 years, and it also got him fired from 27 jobs, a record he’s actually proud of, since it means he was able to grab a photo of a train or ride the rails with other “yuppie hobos.”
Building G-scale or 1:24 scale railroads became a full-time job after someone asked Cartwright to fix someone’s broken model. Clients began to seek him out to build new ones, and now Cartwright employs two men to help build and tend the railroads. He has a workshop trailer to build on-site for clients of his business, Empire Builder Railroad Designs.
Cartwright gives each railroad he builds a name: The Pinnacle Peak & Northern,
The Verde Valley Line, The Canadian Southern Pacific, The Paso Fino Railroad, The Gibbs Scenic Railway and The Gem & Fossil Railroad, for example, are all in Scottsdale.
Most backyard railroads average about 1,000 linear feet of track, but Cartwright’s are usually more than double that, not including bridges, cuts, tunnels, towns, airports or mines. He’s completing one in California that has 10-foot-high trestles.
Cartwright says the best railroad he ever built is the Dynamite Rio Verde & Eastern Railroad in Scottsdale.
“I’ve made more interesting trestles on other rail roads. I’ve made more interesting bridges and rock formations or waterfalls on other ones. But when it comes to an operating session, when it comes to run ning a train as a real rail road can run, this is the way to play,” he says.
Cartwright has cared for the Dynamite Rio Verde for 12 years, but rarely runs the trains himself: The landowners, neighbors and friends stop by to drive trains around the 2-acre desert site.
“My job tonight is dis patch and kibbitz,” says Cartwright. “My best enjoy ment is to see people not talking to me, because when they go out here and are amazed by what’s out here that’s the best part of it. No body can beat that.”
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