The Sacramento Valley Garden Railway Society (SVGRS) is the Garden Railroad Club for fourteen Counties in Northern California.  Our members live in Alameda, Amador, Butte, El Dorado, Marin, Merced, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Solano, Yolo and Yuba Counties. The wide geographic area permits our members to construct replicas of lumber, mining, farming and urban railroads or all of these — or none of these! After all, the railroads belong to the members.

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The club was formed in 1989 to help existing and potential garden railroaders build, operate and maintain miniature trains indoors and out.  Since its founding, the Sacramento Valley Garden Railway Society has helped its members enjoy their gardens even more with large scale trains running through them. Sounds of trains running through loops of greenery enhance the entire garden experience. 

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Large scale trains are generally powered by electricity, but some are actually powered by STEAM!  Some members have live steam engines pulling the cars on their railroads.  Some members operate their engines and trains on a portable modular layout, similar to those of their “sparkie” friends.

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SVGRS offers another way to enjoy Garden Railroading with old and new friends!  Modules are small tables designed to interconnect to form a much larger railroad display.  Our modules are about four foot square, and designed to be light-weight and portable. The layout itself is double tracked approximately 16 by 30 feet. The group usually sets up at home and garden shows, train shows, the State Railroad Museum, nurseries, etc.

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Some tables are flat, and are decorated for the season, while one corner module consists of a mountain with tunnel and a flowing stream!

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The modular layout allows members without railroads to run their equipment, and to acquaint the public in general (and encourage them to participate) with the spirit of garden railroading.

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Since gardens are a major part of garden railroading, plants are much more important to garden railroaders than to “indoor” model railroaders.  Many garden railroaders want plants to be in proportion to the railroad locomotives and cars that wend their way through back yard plantings. Others just want to see their railroad running through their exiting garden. This is sometimes a hit or miss success, with many different things affecting the success of our plants.

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Join us.  Garden Railroading is Fun!

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