I am so new at this it is scary. I just picked up myfirst train mag last night. I just wanted to build a small railway around my pond and now feel overwhelmed. I need a place to star. Do I buy the train first, the track or what. I live in Peterborough Ontario Canada. Needless to say we have snow in the winter months. Will this affect the track etc.
tom
Congratulations at being bitten by the bug. I have been involved with G scale for a few years but still do not have anything in the garden. However, I belong to the Rocky Mountain Garden Railroaders in Calgary where several members have track in their yard year round. In the winter it is possible to use a snow plow to clear track and run on the warmer days. To prevent frost heaving, drainage is very important. There are a number of different methods of putting down track which you can research to decide which is best for you. As for which comes first, a train or track- for me, beginning with a starter set allowed me to get hands on right away. It will whet your appetite for what else needs to happen. Garden Railways magazine has a list of local clubs which may direct you to someone in your area. Again, welcome to the hobby, it will provide you with years of enjoyment. Stanley
First time on the site…like others a newcomer. Am about to swap from HO which never got started to Garden which will get started. Have a small property…19 acres in SW Western Australia…getting close to retirement and this is to be a toy for me. Plan to purchase LGB Kit 74255 as a starter and have allocated 1/2 acre to landscape and track and then watch the track grows… and the bank account diminish. My wife is supportive so here goes. Would welcome any input or suggestions.
Welcome to Garden railroading. A lot of people get started in G scale after getting a trainset that runs for the holidays. Then they do some serious studying and really get into it. I agree that Garden Railways is a good source of information and covers a lot about the hobby, but Kevin, there’s an outstanding modeler in OZ (his name for downunder) that is a main contributor to MyLargeScale.com on the Internet. Go onto the Net and look him up and get some good sources for finding what you’ll need and be happy with.
Enjoy your trains! Scotty
Pastor Tom, Some suggestions, to start you can just place a simple oval or circle around your pond right onto what ever surface you have. it would be easier to give you some more advice but not knowing whats next to your pond makes it tough to suggest things. I would get a starter set, LGB,Aristo-Craft, USA set will allow you to use the track provided with it to begin your layout. Bachmann tracks are indoor use only and lousy quality, the trains are ok for outdoor. But just laying it down (not on Grass though) gives you an idea of what it looks and what future posibilties are. you can always ballast the track later and the expand it as the mood strikes you. try to avoid power switches unless you are a qualified outdoor electrician, use manuals. and for power just use the one that comes with the set, just make sure you bring in the powerpack after your finished, and just have fun with it. The 1st rule of garden RR is there are NO rules, what ever strikes your fancy is A-OK.
Good Luck Pastor Tom! As stated by some of the others ,Garden Railways magazine is a good place to get a start. Buy enough decent track to build an oval, (Aristo Craft or LGB are good) along with a simple, economical starter set of trains. Again, use Garden Railways for some comparison shopping and also to make contact with the different manufacturers web sites. Finally, may I suggest the book “Beginners Guide to Large Scale Model Railroading” by Marc Horovitz and Russ Larson. This is a Kalmbach publication and should be the first reference guide to this hobby. Again, have fun andGood Luck!
Hello Pastor Tom and welcome to Garden Railroading! It is truly a wonderful hobby and is composed of some fantastic people. You’ll get lots of opinions, nearly all of which are good, but very different. There are a huge number of options, none of which you will know is right until you try it. The good news is that nearly none of the options is wrong either.
I’ll give you my experiences and opinions. I have had a G-scale train since about 1981, but it only ran around the Christmas tree until two years ago when my wife and I decided to re-landscape and put it outside. I live in Michigan, so we probably share some similar weather patterns.
Link up with any local garden railroad club. Having people to talk to, question and share ideas is great.
Subscribe to Garden Railways. It’s a great magazine and very helpful to advanced and beginner alike.
Check out www.mylargescale.com and www.largescaleonline.com. They are both good websites (largescaleonline requires a subscription to enter the forums) and have forums where everyone will try to help you. We are the fastest growing of all model railroading, so there are lots of questions from newcomers. Don’t worry if your question might sound stupid. We’ve all been there and want to help.
As a beginner, I would recommend buying sectional track (it comes in presri bed curves and lengths). The other two options are flexible track (it allows more flexibility in your design - no pun intended - but is a little trickier to lay) and hand-laid track (just what you think it is - leave it to the pros for now). The two to choices and the easiest to find in hobby stores or on the internet are LGB and Aristo-Craft. They are both very good and will stand up to the weather outside all year round. LGB track, in my opinion, looks best with old steam and narrow gauge trains because its tie-to-tie spacing is wider. Aristo-Craft track , in my opinion, looks best with more modern locos or standard g
Wow, everyone has already given you some great places to start. I just want to add that if you can find some garden railroads in your area, please visit them. It will give you an idea of what can be accomplished, and oftentimes the owners are more than willing to share their experiences. I know there are clubs in Canada, and I don’t know how far you are from the Hockley Valley Railroad in Orangeville, but it’s a great one, and David Goodhue is a nice guy. www.hvrr.on.ca
Rene
Hello Pastor Tom. We live in Bolton, ON so are close to Burlington. We are also new. Have two trains and some track , but none installed yet. We jopined the Central Ontario Garden Railway Association and have found the members extremely helpful, the open houses a great source of ideas and the social aspect is fun. There are some members realatively close to your area. Membership is very reasonable at $25 per year per family. The contact to join is Ross Webster, RR # 3, Georgetown, ON, L7G 4S6.
Hockley Valley railroad is a good place. The current owner is Dave Hails - also a great guy. Unfortunately he is moving to BC and the business is again for sale. The HVRR web site is www.hvrr.ca
Oh yes. It sounds like you are ahead of us as we plan on installing the lake, river, waterfall, mountains and hills next year . With luck a train before the snow.
Ivan
I’m new too. Found this forum yesterday. Looks like there are a lot of folks in Garden RR down under. I suspect there are clubs. That’s the best way I know to get started. I suggest trying to have your wife be active in the hobby. I’m a woman model railroader and have been volunteer at 1:1 railroad museum. Many women enjoy this hobby. A lot of them are involved in garden railroads. Some only for the garden, which is a big help, but many others take a big interest in the railroad portion. If she is interested in history you have a good start already. If she does crafting or sewing she has skills that could be expanded to use on the railroad. Look for garden railroads to visit or shows/conventions to attend.
Hope you don’t mind if I piggyback on another newby’s request. Your response will really help me. I did the cut & paste thing into a document so I can refer to it in the future. Most of RR is in boxes but I have set up a loop with a couple sidings on my 30X40 front porch. Had to have something to run until house is done enough that I feel OK about working on garden RR. House is above a walk out basement so porch is 10 feet above ground. Only problem so far has been nosey raccoons visiting during the night. After that I always bring trains into house overnight. I may put up flashing around support posts to stop that problem.
I may pick you brain later for help building my pike. Thanks.
Tom,
The most improtant already mentioned thing is if there is a club in your area, that is a great way to learn. Learn is the important thing here…so many start buying stuff to early and find out later they should have waited. Relax and learn from the others. If you are close to the New York area, there is a lot of garden railroading happening there and you could join a club there to see what is going on .
Hello Everyone
My name is John and I live just outside Los Angeles. I’m brand new to garden RR, but not new to model RRs. I have been in and out of HO for 25 years. Amazingly, if you had asked me one week ago if I was interested in garden RR, I would have said no. I have seen some shows on HGTV about garden RR, and it looked pretty nice, but I thought it was out of my reach. Anyway, here is what happened. My wife and I were in a second hand store, and I found a plastic bag full of large scale train equipment for $13 in the toy section. I knew practically nothing about G scale equipment, and researched it here on the internet. What I discovered was that I had an early Bachman 4-6-0 starter set, battery & RC controlled.
I had illusions of upgrading the loco, but after cleaning it up and running it, I found it performed poorly, just like everyone said it would on the net and it had plastic wheels and detailing which looked too fake. I found a guy in Las Vegas who had an upgrade kit but for the cost I could buy a brand new loco. The second hand rolling stock (3 cars) are in good shape and considering new ones are $25-$75$ each, I’d say I came out ahead. I added some metal wheels ($11) on one car and plan to do the same to the others. The real killer in expense is the track. I learn fast., and after talking to some people and studying the farden RR beginners book by Kalmbach, I went out bought about 100 feet of USA track after surveying and measuring my yard and a Bachman Anniversary edition 4-6-0 loco, which is by far the best deal. The Spectrums are nice but twice as expensive, and I did’nt think it was worth the extra cost.
Eventually, I’m going to convert the loco to full RC.
Right now I am stumped, because I have some permanent landscaped plants, that I can’t move where I need to lay the track, between them and a fence, but the roots are near the surface so I cannot dig a trench to put in the crusher fine ballast.
Any suggestions on how to lay the track, if you can’t
I’m stumped too, which is why I haven’t moved ahead on this. I would prefer a simple, elevated, 20 foot diameter oval, about 12 inches above ground - the ground is pretty much flat. The supports could be 1 in. round pipe or conduit, with square 1/8 in. thick steel pads welded or brazed on the pipe to support the trackbed, placed 3 - 5 ft. apart (depending on the thickness/strength of the material.
But this is where I’m stumped…what to use for the roadbed? Since it will be continuously curved, it would require LOTS of pressure treated lumber to outline the track, with lots of excess, unused lumber. Anyway, maybe I’ll come up with a simple, inexpensive method of constructing the roadbed. Any suggestions?
JD
Jd, get in touch with Olddad he makes his own spline roadbed with Trex, Trex is a manmade decking material( plastic composite or somthing) look for Olddads FYI links post to get in touch with him. I’ve seen his photos (e-mailed) and it look like it might work for you.
Well Tom you have been given some very good advice, but I would put in my little bit. My advice is not to buy anytyhing that you will regret later. A starter set is a good idea it is inexpensive and gives you a bit of everything. But don’t forget when you get further into it you may not want a bit of everything and what you have may be not what you now want. So if you decide to buy anything, don’t; wait three months and if you still want it then, well go ahead.
My advice is to decide early on if you want to go digital or not, if so buy a digital starter set. This is a big ask I know; to decide this. It is expensive, very expensive but it lets you do things easily that you would not be able to dream of. The wiring, expense and extra planning once you get into more complex set ups is inceredible, compared to what you have to do if you get into digital contol in the early stages. I did and I am very pleased that I have, I can do virtually anything I like as far as control is concerned, no fancy wiring, very few isolated track sections, no irritationg restrictions. But digital is a mine field inits own right and I am not happy with the reliability of my equipment but I would not choose the other route under any circumstances. I emphasise digital is expensive to get started more than double the cost but as you go on, you will be glad that you have paid the extra.
The advice to get in touch with Old Dad is good, he has a great setup, his mountains are to die for and he is good fellow.
To MMS I was surprised that you thought that Canada was down under; I live down under and Canada is nowhere near where I live. Down under is in the Southern Hemisphere of the planet and mainly includes Australia and New Zealand and a few Pacific Islands.
Regards. Ian: Kawana Island Tropical Railway; Sunshine Coast. Queensland. Australia.
Hi tom
you will need to get in touch with local modelers to find out how the deal with your winters without the railway breaking up in the cold.
It can be done.
Read as much as you can on the subject
Ask questions here remember the stupid question is the one you did not ask when you should have.
[#welcome]
regards John
Hi Kevin Graham
raid my profile and Email me I am in West Australia as well.
will assist where I can by the way AMRA in Perth have an active large scale group in Perth that covers both electric and steam trains in the garden.
Check out the Toenail Ridge shortline web site for a start
!/2 acre that will do a good job of getting you into trouble[:D][#welcome][wow]
regards John
Hi,
A great way to get going is to buy a starter set with everything in, some extra track if you have the funds, cut the grass, set it up with the mains unit indoors and run those trains. In the UK the LGB starter sets are well priced - to get you hooked - and the quality is superb. I ran mine on Sunday for a few hours and did a pu***est on one of my Bachmann coaches and my LGB drovers caboose, both lighted. A good push on the Bachmann sent it a few feet down the track, the LGB went on, and on and on - the moral being, you get what you pay for. Whichever make you get, don’t forget the lubrication, Hobby Lube do a good 6 pack of all you need, and follow the makers instructions. Happy railroading.
Cheers,
Kim
John, and Jim
why not bridge over the offending roots? all you would need is a couple of pressure treated 2x4’s and a 2x6 on top to allow the track to span over the rooted area, or plan on elevating the route a couple of inches so that it clears the roots at the bad spots?
Just a couple of suggestions.