MENOMONEE FALLS — Inside a Menomonee Falls basement, more than a dozen trains snake through tunnels, trees, and towns in a near-perfect scale replica of a Pacific Northwest railroad. It's bigger than most home models you will ever see. The average size for one is about 64 square feet. This is 600 square feet.
“This is a very contagious type of hobby. The more you do it, the more you want to do," Robert Jordan, the yardmaster of this model railroad, said.
Jordan built a scale replica of the Cascade Division of the Great Northern Railway in his basement. In fact, he actually bought the home in 2001 because it had the space he needed to build the railroad to the size he wanted. It took him about three years of custom lighting and electrical work before he could lay the first tracks down.
The model has 13 locomotives, more than 100 buildings, too many trees to count, intricate bridges, and hundreds of characters. It has been a labor of love for the past 21 years to make it look exactly as he wanted. All the bridges, towns, and mountains were built with meticulous design. There is fake sawdust where workers are cutting wood, ripples to show a river flowing downstream, families inside homes talking, and so much more.
“I do something called forced perspective. So what I do is I put the larger buildings in the front of the layout and the smaller buildings toward the back of the layout so that as you're viewing up through the streets of Everett, it looks like it's further away than it is.”
He even took all the photos of the Cascade Mountain range that line the basement walls to give it extra depth.
Jordan is an electrical engineer by trade. That coupled with his appreciation for detail since he was a young child helped him create such an intricate model.
"Because I try to add as much detail as I can, and that's what makes me, me. That sort of makes me happy. I really enjoy that sort of thing," he said.
He chose this Pacific Northwest setting because he is fascinated by the level of engineering it took to make it possible.
“The area through the Cascades, where they had to deal with the elements, the weather, the avalanches, and things like that, some of the things they had to abate the railroad snow I found interesting.”
He also threw in his own bits of funky flair like a zombie coming out of a cemetery during a funeral, two jackalopes, a cross between a bear and a deer he calls a 'beer', big foot, and a grim reaper where a major avalanche occurred causing the largest train accident in American history.
Jordan couldn’t have done this alone. It was a family affair that included his mom and brother too.
“Why did I want to be involved? For the family time. It was really my big driver," Jerry Jordan, Robert's brother, said.
It’s the same reason his mom began helping out.
“I just love being a part of it and having conversations while we do this," Irene Jordan, said.
More than 20 years have passed since Robert started this railroad. Now, he and his wife are thinking of downsizing the home. That means something has to happen to the model.
“I’ve always jokingly said I would sell the layout for $500,000 and throw in a house.”
He hopes someone or a model railroad club will take it. If not, well, he doesn’t think he can bring it all with him especially some of the larger heavier features he built.
“And I've used over 300 pounds of dental plastering caster, so in the end, for this to come out, it's going to take some sledgehammers and some beefy guys," he said.
Of all the things in the display, there is also a Where's Waldo character hidden for people to find. I showed it in the video. You have to look closely to see it. If that sounds familiar, that's because his friends Ken and Diane Obermann do that with their large Christmas village.
Watch the video to try and find Waldo
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