PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM 109 manufacturer—might work differently… They’re all handmade. They’re gonna be different.” It could come down to a different guy on the assembly line or a dull drill, Richard says. “Some may start more easily. Some may just be ornery.” SCALED TO SIZE Richard steps past one of his trackside towns replete with sheriff’s office, bank, church and general store. Over his garden wall, a real-life golf course spills across the distant hills. Far-off golfers in their carts seem tosize with the plastic citizens of Richard’s realm, eliciting a sense 300 shapely bonsai lie along the railroad’s verdant topography. “This is probably a garden that happens to have a railroad,” Richard reflects. “I think the garden still takes precedence.” About a third of BAGRS opts for “live steam” locomotives, Richard among them. He did give electric engines a try, but... “I’d put a chair out here, watch them go around, and within a half hour I’d be sleeping,” he recalls with a chuckle. “You never get tired with steam engines. You never know what’s gonna happen next because they’re so individualistic. Two engines—the exact same model from the exact same of surrealism. “Scale is very important,” Richard notes, bending to adjust a bowler-hatted gentleman. “When I first started, I said, ‘Whether it’s this height or this height, it’ll be fine. Yeah… It’s not. It sticks out like a sore thumb.” He now tries to keep the populace to three inches in height. No six-inch giants here. It seems the monster-sized rats, moles and squirrels haven’t gotten the memo. “We have had lots of varmints,” laments Richard, who says the pesky rodents
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