[train whistle blows]
>> Like many five-year-old boys,
Buck Guthrie loved toy trains.
However, he never outgrew
his fascination.
Half a century later.
Buck's childhood dream
is still in motion, and Buck
is still a kid at heart.
>> We used to milk cows here.
This is a lot more fun.
>> The barn is 100 feet long
and packed with train layouts
of all sizes, scales, and
shapes.
>> Trains, I can't tell you
how many, because I don't know.
>> Buck started collecting
trains before it was even
a popular hobby.
>> In the 1960s and '70s, these
trains, you could get anywhere,
and you could get them
for nothing.
>> In 2001, Buck and
his wife Jan opened
the Toy Train Barn near Argyle
on the old family farm.
>> I just got hooked on it.
It's been quite a hobby, and
then I just thought a museum
would be just really cool.
>> That's that white building
there.
>> Buck builds the displays
and Jan plays the tour guide.
>> There's Superman.
He just went into the
phone booth and he'll come out.
There he goes.
>> Jan knows the story
behind each display, like this
drive-in movie theater.
>> She went to the snack stand
and when she came back,
he had a new date in there.
>> They designed the
displays to be interactive.
>> So, you can push buttons
and make things run.
You just start them up, and
the train will start up and run.
>> Some of Buck's first
memories are of toy trains.
>> That's the one
that started it all.
>> As a child, Buck remembers
each Christmas Eve,
Santa brought more than just
presents.
Santa set up the tree
and the Lionel Trains.
>> In the morning,
we'd run down the steps
to see the Christmas Tree
and the presents, and
I wanted to see the other room,
because that's where
the Lionel Trains were.
>> As a teen, Buck got to keep
the trains up year round, and
soon he was building displays.
>> Watching the trains
gets boring, so I want
to see something else happen.
In order for me to have
a log loader,
I would have to make it.
So I would look at different
things, and the next thing you
know I've got mom's can opener
torn apart, and I'm using the
motor out of that to build
a saw mill or a log loader.
>> Buck continues to recycle
household items for the museum.
>> My toaster is behind us.
two kids that jump up and down
on pogo sticks.
I came home one day and
all 12 of my bathroom towels
were gone.
They were hunter green.
If you look underneath
some of the layouts
at the grass, and that,
look at them closely,
they're my bathroom towels.
My printer I asked him to fix
is now elevators
going up and down in a building.
>> It didn't get fixed for her.
[laughs]
>> I come home one day
from grocery shopping, and
put my bags up on the counter,
the microwave was gone
right out of the kitchen.
>> Microwaves are a key
component in the Toy Train
Museum.
They literally run the place.
>> This is how we turn them on.
Microwave ovens.
>> The power to each display
controlled by a microwave panel.
Set the timer, push "start,"
and the display comes to life.
>> I have more fun animating
different things than actually
I do running the trains.
>> Buck builds all of
his displays from scratch,
and the story of how they work
is almost as interesting
as the display itself.
>> The smoke is actually
the resister coil
out of the defroster
out of my car.
Then, the water is actually
the windshield washer pump
out of my car.
Didn't need 'em.
>> Or, these bumper cars
at an amusement park.
>> This that I'm lifting off
here, is actually a mouse pad
for a computer.
Now it's a microwave oven motor.
This is a belt Buck made.
>> Jan take-apart-able,
that's what I call it.
She has more fun now showing
everybody else how it works.
If I don't build it
to where she can take it apart,
it's going to break.
>> Jan wasn't always
part of the railroad plan.
She didn't even know Buck
liked toy trains
until after they were married.
>> I didn't know a thing about
this when we first got married.
Not a clue.
>> I waited a couple of months
after we were married
to tell her.
When she came home one day,
I had a few boxes of trains
down in the living room,
and I said, "You gotta
come look at something."
>> How can you not love it?
>> Decades later,
each new visitor lets them enjoy
their trains all over again.
>> It's contagious.
You just gotta enjoy it
with them.
>> Not many people
get to realize a dream
and make it happen.
I don't know how we did it.