Basic info questions

Garden Railroading
1

Hi,

I was just wondering a couple of things:

  1. How much would it cost to setup a garden train in a backyard about 15 by 10 feet?

  2. Am I to decide the side of the garden to setup the train based on sunny or shadow side of the garden or other factor that may have an advantage over another one?

  3. Any feedback will be apprecaite it.

Thanks,

CR

2

Your time zone is logged as 0 GMT -so I presume you are somewhere in the UK?

The main sites that I would recommend you to look at are:

http://www.grsuk.com/index.asp?info/welcome.htm
http://www.kgrmodels.com/
http://www.brandbright.co.uk/

If you are in the UK then you have the choice of running “G” or 16mm scale. “G” is more for the box buyers while 16mm is more for the scratch builder. I model in 16mm and spend roughly £10 per week doing so. If you examine the home page of The Cabbage Patch Railway then I hope you will find that 16mm scale is well -dirt cheap!!! It is a point of great personal pride that all my stuff is made from junk and scrap.

Your largest cost purchase will always be your track -then your rolling stock.

Have fun and welcome to our world.

As to plants I leave that to my wife… But I normally plant fruit bushes and strawberries around the layout!!!

regards

ralph

3

[#welcome] I run my track around the edge of the back garden and I put my station etc on the shady side so when I park up it’s not taking uv rays. Cost, as said by Cabbage, make your mind up were you are going then start looking on e-bay. Sandy at www.gardentrains.co.uk is a good guy to deal with for mail order and there are now G guage stockists all over the UK - assuming you are in the UK! Main thing is - have fun, once you start, that’s it, you never return to the other world.

Cheers,

Kim

4

Last year, someone calculated they had spent about $6.00 USD per foot which seems a fairly good estimate. That’s an “installed” number which allows for some switches, a small bridge, ballast, topsoil, hardware etc. We haven’t established your location, but the $ assumes US shipping, taxes etc, As for the site, if your summers are hot-put it in the SHADE!

5

[#welcome] Good to hear from you, as you have been informed by others on the forum. If poss always have part of your lay out in the shade, this saves having to bring loco and rolling stock out of the sun on a good running dayIf you are in UK and would like some help or advice put your email address up and I will help if I can

6

The $6.00 US figure I came up with was based upon LGB “flex track”, LGB remote electric Switches (turnouts), gravel for sub roadbed, crusher fines for ballast, wiring to switches. It is possible to bring the costs down by using a less expensive brand of track.

Bridges, buildings, topsoil and plants; well that’s another story, All bridges have/are being made with recycled (used) redwood and cedar (cost: free to very cheap), some structures also made from scavenged wood (cost: free). Top Soil, where I live we have a community “Green Waste” Recycling Program. The city pays this company to pick up all green waste, lawn clippings, tree branches/trunks, what ever. We then can buy back our green waste in the form of compost or mulch for $2.00 for 3 cubic yards. Plants; my wife is the gardener, that is her job. She allowed me to purchase a few trees and I promptly kill half of them. So now if it is green and growing I’m not allowed to touch.

7

Tom-Thanks for clarifying and confirming.-track/switches/ballast/wiring. I am glad you kept track-I tried but every time I’d walk into the garden center for 10 bags of top soil, I’d walk out with $100 of everything but the top soil and wonder where the train budget went.

8

Engines and rolling stock “Not Included”

9

I find the idea of making a budget quite interesting but very hard to do, my wife is a retired financial controller and she reckons what it will cost you is as deep as your pockets are.

I have gone for less of everything and better stuff. I have 200 m of track and i believe with rolling stock and all i have spent over the last 4 years about A$40,000.00 or US$31,000 or GBP 16,000.

This figure comes of having an accountant involved and everythinghas been costed and budgeted for. This figure of course does not include labour but would include any costs incurred by outside contractors. For insyance i recently had a concrete sawyer in to bore a 220 mm hole through a 200 mm concrete block wall.

So the figure of $6.00 per foot would not apply if you looked at all the costs involved 220 m =

666’ . $40,000/ 666 = about GBP24 per foot.

Rgds Ian