ORANGE : Open House for Train Enthusiasts

The low whistle of a locomotive greets visitors to Glen Landin’s railroad museum in Orange Park Acres.

The Rancho Santiago College student has transformed the museum, once Landin’s family garage, into a tribute to the iron horse.

This weekend, 800 visitors are expected to tour the small building stuffed with working model trains, historic photographs, artifacts and books during an annual open house from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. today and Sunday.

Outside the museum, an electric engine and its cargo weave through the family garden. Landin, 20, welcomes train enthusiasts in an Amtrak conductor’s uniform that hangs a few sizes too big.

With the help of a neighbor, Landin began in 1984 to design and build model “empires,” the landscapes of plaster mountains and toy towns his trains cruise around. One display, a three-foot-high mountain range complete with tunnels and scenic passes, took four years to finish.

But Landin said he loves to immerse himself in the detailed work of re-creating railroad history. For him, a dream vacation means a trek to Promontory, Utah, the site where the tracks of the first transcontinental railroad were joined in 1869.

A model of the historic event, on display in one corner of the museum, earned Landin a blue ribbon at the 1988 Orange County Fair.

“One of my favorites is the Durango & Silverton,” Landin said, pointing to another display, a gleaming black engine pulling foot-long parlor cars. The model is a facsimile of the locomotive that hauled precious ore out of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains in the 1880s.

Landin’s museum is usually open by appointment only, but every year he holds an open house that enthusiasts hear about through word-of-mouth or the mailings he sends to friends.

Since he began collecting the trains, Landin estimates he has spent about $20,000, with some cars costing up to $1,000 each. Still, there are items he covets.

“I’d like to have a live steam engine about two-feet high that people could ride through the back yard,” Landin said.

The Glen Landin Railroad Museum is at 20645 Santiago Canyon Road.