Ria has officially started her goal of building a garden model railroad. One has to start somewhere, so our modest initial acquisition is an 0-4-0 steam locomotive, with tender and caboose. These carry the Durango & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) roadname. Small, older steam engines are her favorite, so that is what we will be focusing on.

This engine (Aristo Craft #ART-21327) is quite heavy. It has a headlight and a rear glowing red light to simulate the burning fire. When we put it on our simple, Christmas-tree oval of track, it ran fantastic.

The tender is the standard slope-back tender (Aristo Craft #ART-21327) that matches this engine. Aristo-Craft claims the model is based on a true prototype. We have found photos of a Pennsylvania Railroad 0-4-0 and these models look very similar.

The caboose is a 4-wheel "bobber" caboose (Aristo Craft #ART-42210) that was used up through the early 1900s.