A railroad engineered as their labor of love

“We hit about everything,’’ says “Buz’’ Beal. “There’s even an outhouse. Now that’s getting down to the nitty gritty.

“I’ve got railroading in my blood,’’ says Beal, 73, a Jonesport native and 26-year Coast Guard veteran whose grandfather was a Canadian Pacific engineer. Beal began planning the model’s layout as a boy, but it wasn’t until around 1989, when he had returned to Jonesport after nearly 50 years away, that he began building his dream. It took 12 years and thousands of hours to complete.

“You have to have the place, the opportunity, and the patience,’’ he says. And the right partner. “Helen’s family were railroad people. We’ve been married 25 years and never had an argument. We’re two peas in a pod.’’

Beal had a track plan, and he knew the model would fill the building before they started construction. They did everything by hand using tweezers, glue, and plaster of Paris.

“We didn’t know what the heck we were doing. We did it as we went along, 6 to 8 feet at a time,’’ Beal says. The model rests on a maze of tables with varying heights. “I didn’t want it all the same; it gets humdrum if you do that,’’ he says. The design allows visitors to walk through the layout.

Helen Beal built the little houses and cut 600 windows by hand using an X-Acto knife. She also affixed trees and painted all the small pieces. Buz Beal painted the houses and built the larger structures. Some cars were built from scratch, some made from kits, others bought. The granite cliffs and wooded mountains were created with layers of plaster-soaked paper towels.

The model has three sections, and full operation requires a trained volunteer manning each. There are boxcars and grain cars, gondolas, and cars designed to carry gas, oil, or coal.

“You have to know all the businesses, how many cars can fit on a siding by each business, and know what every car is and what it carries or is used for. There’s a lot to it. People look and don’t realize that,’’ Beal says.