Where to start?

Well, here I am, from two other worlds (“HO” and “O”) and ‘bitten by the Garden Bug’.

So many questions: Where to start? Initial cost? Maintenance? Rolling stock? ETC.

Based on your experience, what would you suggest as to the best source of basic information?

Many thanks.

The Florida Garden Railway Society (fgrs.org) serves the Orlando & Tampa area. check out their web site and get in contact with them. I’m certain there will be folks locally that will help you along the way to the garden train addiction.

You can also norton search/google/bing/yahoo search for local garden railroad clubs in the Orlando area.

I’d suggest George Schreyer’s excellent site: http://www.girr.org/girr/index.html

You can find some Beginner FAQ’s on my site also, which was inspired by George’s site.

Regards, Greg

Green Streak: Greg E.: Thank you.

Read a lot, read old posts here and on MyLargeScale.com

Go to shows and try to join a club.

Ask lots of questions… we’ll be here to help. [Y]

Greg

Start up costs…ell thats a tricky one that depends greatly on how big a layout were you considering. How wide a diameter of curvature you have room for. Are you thinking narrow gauge or standard gauge. These are all major factors. Its hard to give info without knowing what your interest are.

There’s a tab under the GR logo at the top of the page that will give you good basic info and I agree with reading sites like mylargescale.com and largescalecentral.com are great sources of info.

There is an online book at www.familygardentrains.com. Has all the info and pictures you need. Dennis

DennisB: I went to the site. Thanks AND THANKS TO ALL for your advice.