If necessary to do, can HO gage layouts be placed outdoors and trains run on them successfully. My best site is outdoors on the patio on a small site that HO would scale to better than G scale would.
I could take the rolling stock indoors or park it under cover. But could the track, switches, and other electrical current carrying mechanism be used out doors where they may get wet?
Has anyone done this successfully?
Appreciate your input.
there was an MR article about HO outdoors, but had covers when not operating.
as far as the track and switches themselves, they could probably be kept outside. You’d have to clean the dirt out every now and then, but the switch machines might pose a problem. I’m not sure whether or not electric or pneumatic will either one stand up to wet.
Greg
Aha, I can answer this one! Yes, HO can be used outdoors BUT there are several important caveats that need to be taken into consideration:
1: Most HO scale plastics are not UV compatable. Peco track is, but locos and rolling stock, structures etc are not. It is important and makes a difference. UV light will rip plastic to shreds in a short time without protection.
2: Physics. Every little leaf or gust of wind will blow your train off the track. You would have to weight each peice of rolling stock quite a bit, so expect to use M.U. or fewer cars in a train. Prepare for frequent derailments.
3: Rain, birds, animals, leaves, bugs, and other 1:1 scale real world issues. Even in G scale these can cause problems, multiply by a factor of 500 on the irritating scale for HO. HO loco motors and drives are not weather sealed and every peice of dirt will find it’s way into the gearing.
4: All your electrical items would have to be easily detachable and brought inside when not in use. HO power packs and switch machines are simply not designed for outdoor use.
5: Prepare for some seriously filthy track at the begining of each operating session. Slugs leave a film, and dirt loves train tracks.
Now, with all that said, there are several very succesful HO layouts in the world today and I would never try to deter anybody from experimenting and learning. I would recommend not doing this as the technical problems are not easily overcome and it could easily overwhelm a beginer’s knowledge and patience.
You might be surprized at how much G scale (with 4ft radius curves) can fit into a corner or around a tree or bush! Why not buy a Bachmann Big Hauler set at an after Christmass discount sale (junk the B’mann track and buy Aristo-craft for outdoor use) and give G scale a try?
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if you were to do a outdoor layout, I would cover it up with something to cut downon the cleanig. You can get painting drop clothes out of very thin, lightweight plastic that woudl great. Keep all the dust off and out of the track and scenery. Just a thought.
Hi guys,
Boy am I glad I saw this thread. The only option for me is an outdoor layout on my covered pation which is 10ftx9ft or about 90 sq ft. I have already planned on covering it, but there are other things I was not aware of. I appreciate the help.
Chris
Hello
I had to reply to this topic, just to help prove that it can be done, I guess in many cases it dependson your Climate, where you are from etc etc.
I live in England (south east) and We run an 00 gauge Garden Railway, and have done for about 3 years now. (Of course for those of you that don’t know our 00 Gauge is more or less the same as your HO gauge!)
Take a look at my site, you might gain a few Ideas, and learn from some of our mistakes before you make some!
Sure they can. I forget where, but I saw a comment on a larger scale being used outside running over dirty and rusty track never missing a beat. It was on this forum, I think rrinker was the author. The title was How much power is too much, or something like that. One of the responses said that they used a large capacity power pack that enabled them to run in those conditions. Electricity doesn’t know what size your trains are, so I’m sure that same approach would work for HO as well. I have no doubt that you would need to clean the rails every once in a while, though. The thing would be finding track, structures and rolling stock that can deal with prolonged exposure to ultra violet light. You could solve the structure problem by scratchbuilding from quality wood. If you like scratchbuilding, you could build rolling stock, too. Regular HO track, structures and rolling stock wouldn’t hold up worth snot, as mentioned before.
i do its a ton of maintenance and re balancing tamping and sometimes pushing pieces together again because of expansion issues with tempiture and weather. one thing to do though use bachmann nickle-silver(greybedding) track do not use other track witch is steel/alloy(rust issues were replacing all of ours as funding and availability permits)
of course once u get all the maintenance out the way and shes running good moving loads goes smooth as silk. today i had to scrub it like crazy from the last rain with one of those sponge pads with the green cloth scrubber on the bottom. but i got 6 loads of fill dirt moved with a sd60m and 5 gondolas 4 short 1 long without cover on. and it made a good dent in my fill dirt pile from digging the last section of the rail and starting the dig on the O guage.
so all in all today was a good day on the railroad. its just alot of work balancing i have switch machienes that are both electric/manual since their bachmann ez-track but they work fine. best thing to do is raise it off the ground with extra bedding and dig a good foundation. i personally use no-ox-id on my tracks as a rust repellent and to help electrical condinuity and i believe it helps personally.
be ready to scrub your trains constantly on the wheels dirt and gunk buildup happens frequently no matter if you use your train 1 time a week or if your like me and every good day your putting hours and scale miles on that engine. you will have to scrub your tracks/engine wheels theres no avoiding it.
one thing to remember balancing out uncoupling issues during the beginning of maintenance will be your new best friend. also if your laying new swaths of track and you aint balanced it yet use a cheapo engine a 15 dollar RWD with the rubber band traction tires should do ya. that way you dont ruin anything decent or expensive. if they still have them id even recommend a 5$ trade show find in someones used discount bin or flea market find.
test your track each time with the cheapo before running your main runner. very important after storms.
also very important too watch out for ant nests under your track especially red ants they are a hazard because they will use your track like a highway you will find them backtracking to your controller if you havent gone wireless or to any swaths your working on or still laying down.
also no the ants will not damage your train if you hit them. you will just crush them theres no derailment issues. now you may have to sweep their bodys off the track once in a blue moon but whatever what do you think the real railroad does with roadkill on the track.
buildings too make sure you have a way to get rid of ants/other unwanted pests especially if its for temporary/perminate housing of equip/engines. ie i have a log cabin with removable roof thats got its own base i use to store spare couplers/trucks/wheels and once in a blue moon engines that fit inside(mostly if im not going to be around).
one thing to consider also build your turntable area and area your gonna be at the most with your train or park your train at the most under shade like a tree to help keep the sun from beating down on a parked engine. consider how hot your car gets inside on a hot day think how your train engine is affected.
dont run on humid days.
now your asking what about running it. well that train is moving then and generating its own wind to keep it cooled off and cool it down you can park and load but when it runs it cools the train back down from the time you were parked especially if you have longer lengths of track.
prune and weed your track and i mean good the more grass that touches the rougher its gonna run. lighter weighted cars can get knocked around by weeds. also if your a early morning go getter weeds crossing the tracks might have dew on them be aware let things dry on your track and be patient.
always bring in all rolling stock with electronics after each running session. including transformer. with bachmann e/z track and a d/c controller its a breeze to unplug and go on the dime. good incase of pop up weather.
remember your mosqueto repelant its easy for us guys with an indoor h/o to forget how unforgiving the outdoor environment can be when were doing something like messing with an outdoor h/o idea
consider a rolling bench it will help alot on your back. especially if your railroad does back intense labor anyhow. mine pulverizes rock with hammers/pickaxes/log splitter-mallets when we do so we are required to wear safety glasses boots hard hats and bluejeans. we also use the log splitter side of the tool to cut out stumps from the ground.
we also cut logs and dig so our railroad is very labor intense. i been hit twice in the leg by a stone about the size of a baseball that came flying out from underneath my mallet. but then again were a chert rock mine/small ammount-materials yard so it comes with the territory. and as you can figure we run hoppers and gondolas
my track has been through 7 storms 1 hailstorm and i believe 1 or 2 tornado watches now. and it still runs smooth enough for me to get 6 loads today with just scrubbing down and readjusting before i ran the train.
[my outdoor h/o carrying fill dirt] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiOX99X9K90)
i do different videos of my outdoor from time to time depending on weather and what i have to do each day
the last time i pulled rock i forgot how many trips with 5 or so cars but i moved a total of 2lbs 4oz of pulverized decorative chert ornamental in about a hour over 50+foot with my train and she still runs strong with the right maitnance and we do scale some of our loads. our primary load at the moment is fill dirt dug from making the O-guage but that could change after this next storm depending on how many branches are dropped from the trees. and how much weed pulling next to the tracks i have to do.
Having an HO layout outside gets old real quick. A friend did this instead and it was a good solution.
Have you seen the walls of a car windshield repair shop? The windshields are stacked up the walls on racks.
My friend made something similar out of 2" x 2" that held 2’ x 6’ and 2’ x 8’ lightweight modules of layout on the wall of his garage. In good weather he would set up on the patio, driveway and even in the house or garage at times. He could use any combo of the benches as the track crossed the ends in the exact same spot on each module. He also had smaller corner modules.
His wife went home to England for a month once and he had it set up in a big circle that went through the living, dining, kitchen and down the hall to make a large circle. He was in heaven. 
He would bring into the house a single module and work on it when he wanted to do landscaping and stuff. Most were 6’ and easy to handle.
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I had a friend who had an outdoor HO layout in his back yard on the Maine coast. With the salt added to the humidity from the ocean, he had some problems with corrosion on the tracks and the connectors between track sections. He used nickel silver rail, but used the track for powering the whole loop. eventually trains would slow on the far side of the loop. We added wires buried in the ballast and connected feeders to the track on a couple of places on the far side from the power pack. This improved the reliability of his system.
G Paine, good to see you here again. It’s been a while.
Regards, Chris
I have been on the forum regularly, but could not get logged on to the old version so I could not respond or comment.