Stonington - When Mike Guarraia was growing up in New Jersey in the 1950s, his parents bought him a Lionel train set. Like many kids, he would leaf through the Lionel catalog, dreaming of someday owning the engines and cars on its pages.

But his interest in model trains waned as he reached high school and his "O" gauge train set ended up in a box in his parents' home. When they moved 20 years ago, Guarraia was surprised they even still had the train set, but he agreed to take it. Eventually, he attended a train meet, where all the engines and cars from his youth sparked his imagination.

Over the past five years, he has transformed the basement of his Shore Drive home into a massive, 60-foot-long model train display that wraps around the stairwell and furnace and covers the oil tank.

It's far from the typical flat display on a table top. Instead, rugged mountains extend 6 feet up to the ceiling while more than 100 "people" work in a sawmill, quarry, mines, fishing dock and other jobs. There are lakes, a dam, latticed bridges, lifelike, leafy trees and pines, and, of course, a computerized train complete with smoke, chugging noises and a clanging bell.

A mirror at one end makes the display look even larger, while a huge glass case showcases the engines and cars that Guarraia has collected over the years.

"When people who don't know about this come down here, they say, 'Holy s--t,'" said the 62-year-old Guarraia, who has taught third grade at the Flanders School in East Lyme for the past 36 years.

While he enjoys running the trains, Guarraia said he has more fun crafting the scenery and buildings.

"It's a form of creativity. Some people knit a sweater or paint with watercolors. I do this," he said. "I've always had an affinity for building things. With this I can be like Mother Nature."

To make the mountains, he covered chicken wire with strips of bedsheets soaked in joint compound to create the frame. He then threw more joint compound at the frame to give it texture.

Then, to make the mountain more rugged, he employed a technique in which he bit off pieces of pink foam insulation and glued them to the mountain.

He painted the mountains with unwanted latex colors he bought at Home Depot and then coated them with spray paint.

He added lichen to simulate the ground cover that would grow along the sides of the rocky landscape. He poured layers of resin to give the blue-green water an authentic look. Wooden coffee stirrers created the intricate lattice work of the bridges and paintbrushes for the masts of boats.

Guarraia, with the help of his wife Darlene, scours hardware stores, yard sales and other places to find inexpensive materials that he can use.

She found a leafy material which he used to make the trees and boats at the Christmas Tree Shop, which he took apart to make his own boats.

Lawn mower gears she found at Lowe's for 29 cents each become the cargo on the back of train car while Guarraia used parts from model cars and buildings to create a gantry and crane. Buying completed buildings for a train display can be an expensive endeavor, so Guarraia came up with a new method.

"Instead of paying a lot of money we're using other items to make them," he said.

He also "kit bashes," using pieces of commercial kits for different gauge train and buildings to build his own creations.

He credits local artist and model builder Tod Johnstone with not only constructing a few of the buildings but giving him tips on how to do it.

"He told me, 'You're a teacher. You're going to have to improvise,'" Guarraia said.

Guarraia worked on his creation at some odd times.

"I don't need a lot of sleep so I would go to bed around 10 p.m. and get up around 2 a.m. That way I could work on it until about 5:30 when I had to get ready for work," he said.

One of the highlights of the layout is the sawmill, in which individual pieces of woods are seen in the 10 separate stations where logs are slowly turned into finished planks. No detail is left out. There's even seagull excrement staining the roof of the sawmill.

But it's the people working and carrying on their daily lives that sets this layout apart.

A man carries a pipe at the coal mine, another runs a sawmill, while a third adjusts the rigging on a boat. A man fixes a roof while two surveyors work along the railroad. People fish from a dock and a group of men sit around a table playing checkers. A skunk sneaks up on two men.

"That's what make it come alive,' Guarraia said.

For those with a sharp eye, there's even a bit of junior high school humor in the display.

The signs on two buildings identify them as the RU Farty Bean Co. and the Sal Monella Seafood Co. One man can be seen urinating behind a building while another hides behind a tree, peering at two women in bikinis sunning themselves by the lake. A skunk sneaks up behind another man.

So far, Darlene has been a big supporter of her husband's love of trains, agreeing to give up the already limited storage space in the basement. With the current layout compete, Mike said there's even been talk about moving to a new home that has more basement space.

"I have my eye on the washer and dryer, though," he said. "If I can move them upstairs, I can expand again."