Come 6 a.m. Saturday, Glenn Brewer, Fayetteville City Councilman and train buff, will be working on the railroad. He will be joined by Pat Turner of Peachtree City and about a dozen or more members of the Central Georgia Garden Railroad Society as they begin to lay track and erect a village and greenery for their display at the Great American Railroad Show open Saturday and Sunday at Cobb Galleria.

Brewer has been involved in garden railroading for about five years, and with the help of fellow enthusiasts, has set up a whimsical display behind the barn on his mid-town property.

Positioned on two raised beds, two electric trains wind around man-made hills, chug through tunnels and traverse the tracks between the twin cities. Brewer, who is wheelchair bound, operates his railroad by remote control. Saturday, he showed off his nine by forty foot G-scale layout to club members who had been invited for the day to meet and work on adding some extra track to the already impressive arrangement.

Members claim garden railroading is one of the fastest growing hobbies around. It incorporates the precision of engineering, the fun of running model trains and the tranquility and esthetics of gardening.

"It started in the 1930's in England," Brewer explained. "The trains are bigger than the indoor type, and they're built for outside."

The latest resurgence started on the West Coast and has slowly moved east. Brewer got hooked after attending one of the Greenberg train shows, considered among the best and the biggest among train collectors. His display has slowly evolved from a modest railroad nestled under a backyard oak, to the tunneled and trestled peninsula shaped spread behind the barn/roundhouse.

Mary Jo Moore of Cumming planted trains in her 60 foot perennial bed when flowers got to be too much work. "It was a joint effort," she said, showing off the Kodak results of a society work day at her home. She prepared the land by leveling it and ordering in truckloads of rock for the track bed. Her friends and train buddies supplied the labor and know-how for laying the track. "My granddaughter calls the train 'Traffic'," she laughed.

Turner, who is the only official railroad employee in the group, winds his trains around a koi pond in his Peachtree City yard. His enthusiasm for garden railroading and the Internet resulted in an on-line friendship with James Ritson, who at the time of the first communique was living with his family in Alaska. Continued chats between Ritson and Turner resulted in the Ritsons relocating to Peachtree City when Ritson's wife Kristy was transferred by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Startup costs for a garden railroad can run anywhere from $250 to "half the cost of a bass boat," according to one member. Locomotives modeled after a renowned steam engine can soar to $2,000 or more.

The Central Georgia Garden Railroad Society is bucking for the $400 cash prize this weekend and is expected to be one of the only garden railroads exhibited. Creativity of the scene is the key factor in capturing the attendees eyes, according to veteran showmen. Visitors can cast their ballots for the best among the 300 exhibitors.

You can catch their 24 foot by 40 foot display between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Cobb Galleria Centre, Two Galleria Parkway in Atlanta. Admission is $5 for adults and children are admitted free with an adult.