I am new to the scale, and I recently purchased a couple of aristocraft 53’ Evans with metal roller bearing wheels. Can I leave these out side year round, and if so is there any maintenance they require?
Thanks Steve form MD
You can, but I’d build some kind of enclosed shelter for them if I were going to not bring them inside after every operating session. There have been articles in Garden Railways in the past concerning building simple structures into which you can run your trains to keep them safe. Others simply run a track into a garden shed or garage to facilitate safely storing the cars.
Technically, the cars are built to withstand the elements, and there are a few folks who leave them out, unprotected, year round. They’ll generally withstand the sun and rain, but strong winds will blow them over, and storms, heavy rains and other extreme weather events will tend to knock things into them, which isn’t exactly desirable. For instance, I’m looking out my window at 8" of a heavy, wet snow which has toppled a tree in the front yard, and brought down quite a few branches in the back. Any one of those branches could do a world of hurt to a plastic box car.
Later,
K
I’m with you K why would you want to do this?
Summer has come to Queensland, with over 30 degrees C every day and it doesn’t get below 20 for 6 months, we will be getting monsoons soon and really heavy rain and this is kids stuff compared to you American weather, so why do it?
Rgds Ian
Agreed, you can do it, but it’s not advisable. It’s OK to leave your stuff outside for a few days if need be, but an enclosed storage of some kind is required. Capt. Bob has a small tool shed near his RR that he uses for rolling stock storage, BennysRR puts his stuff in a den with easy access to the RR, and I set up shelves in my garage to hold my modest roster.
Welcome to the forum!
Hey K, it’s 72 in Va Beach today, what is snow?[(-D]
[oX)]
TJ
I think they call that white stuff that forms on mountain tops around here “snow”. it is great fun to get out the bino’s and look at it occaisionaly. We got up to 68 in S.D. Last night it got down to a bone shivering 57.
It will also keep the cane toads off your rolling stock.[:D][:D][:D]
Hey Kevin,
I have a bet that we’ll be XC-skiing in 9 days, your 8" of wet snow sounds good, but we’d need to dry it a bit. [;)][:)][:)]
Oh BTW I built a staging/fiddle yard inside the garage, tracks are at eye level, cars can come off the stub end of four tracks. Should work well for what it’s intended - keeping things safe and providing for easy operation.
HJ, you’re welcome to come over anytime and take all the snow you want! We got an additional 7", and lost a tree in the back yard as well. So, you’re all set. all the snow you need, and do-it-yourself ski poles from the fallen tree branches.
(Guess you could say I’m modeling a “branch” line.)
The good news is that it’ll be back in the 70s by the weekend, so I can run trains again once I clean up the debris. Gotta love Fall in the Rockies.
Later,
K
Hi gileng4
You can leave them out side if you wish but don’t.
Or you could end up spending lots of time on repairs, and
unnecasaraly large amounts of cash on replacements for damaged beyond help cars or ones that have grown legs and waljed off the premises
regards John