RRK on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Recently Rod Johnston, his daughter Kate and RRK designer Joe Devlin were given a great opportunity: to set up a garden railway for a family who were the lucky recipients of an extreme home renovation courtesy of the folks at Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Rod, Kate and Joe travelled to California and spent seven frenzied days laying out track, assembling scale model houses and testing the train under an incredibly tight deadline. The episode originally aired on Sunday November 21st, 2004.

These photos were mostly taken on the last two days of the week spent at the farm. You can see the lift truck being used to do the trim and paint the house, and you can see us in our blue shirts madly laying track and putting in the bridges made by Eaglewings.

We had time to fabricate a 1:12 scale model of the home that was demolished, as well as a generic railway station named for the family. They are made from 1/8 inch PVC. The owner of the farm was quite moved by the model of her old house, which had been in her family for over 100 years!

We only had one and a half days to make the roadbed and get the track down, but the final result came out very satisfactorily. We’re thrilled that the hobby of model scale riding railroading was incorporated into this edition of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Hope you enjoy the photos, and be sure to email us with any questions!