I am wanting to get into garden railroading, but I dont have the space, nor do I have the budget, or a G scale railroad. However, O scale garden railroad would be doable for me, given the limited availability of access to competant hobby shops. Would it be possible to build and (with no more effort than a G scale railroad) maintain, an O scale outdoor railroad. I know that the trains themselves caint be left outdoors for extended periods of time, and wouldn’t be, but are there track products out there on the market that can handle it, or do I have to hand lay, or am is this notion as crazy as I originally thought?
Atlas O, track, with the Nickle/Silver rails sh
ould be fine, the plastic ties are UV resistant. I don’t know what type of ground throws are available for the turnouts(track switches) but you will probably want manual, I don’t beleive that the switch motors are weather resistant.
You are not the first to consider or do this, I have seen videos of O-Gauge outdoors. You might try youtube, type “O-Gauge Outdoors” into the search box.
Doug
I think Gargraves still makes stainless steel track.
Your track options are:
Gargraves Stainless Steel OR Atlas-O - Nickel Silver
Those are the only two I would even consider for outdoor layouts.
The Atlas-O switch machines are designed in such a way that the top cover over laps the bottom tray thereby making them nearly weather resistant. There is a slot in the top where the manual slide is located that will let water and other debris into the machine so you would need to watch that. You could design ‘buildings’ that you could use to cover the switches when the railroad is not in use… What I like about the Atlas switches for outdoor use is there are no openings on the bottom so there is nothing to get caught on the natural ground cover.
I’ll try to take some pictures of their switches when I get home tonight to highlight what I’m trying to describe.
here is a site that you will want to look at.
Thanks guys. Y’all have been a Texas-Sized help to this good ole boy.
If you want powered switches get the manual switches and check out a product called Del-air, these are air powered switches and need a small compressor for air supply a lot of garden railways use them.
As for track GarGraves stainles steel and Atlas O are the best bet for outside.