New to garden railroad.

[Anonymous]

Hi Guys,

I recently bought a LGB G scale train set, I am bored of wating it run on a 3 ft circle, I would like to lay some tracks in my back yard and get some real fun out of it. I have approx 100 ft of track layout, can someone point me to any material that would teach me from very basic what I need to do wrt to tracks, power supply, controls etc ? 

I have several questions in mind, I think I can manage building bridges, railbeds etc, what I dont know is what material I need to use for the tracks, should I buy LGB or aristo-craft, or is it cheaper to build tracks from scratch? what power supply to use, how to connect different pieces of rails for power transmission etc ... 

 Pointers to a source of information addressing these issues will be very helpfull.

 

Thanks a ton 

[altterrain]

Welcome to garden railroading!

Try looking through some of these -

http://www.trains.com/grw/default.aspx?c=ss&id=16

http://www.btcomm.com/trains/primer/index.htm

 

-Brian 

[Anonymous]

where do u shop for tracks? which site has good price ?

[GearDrivenSteam]

Welcome to the forum and the hobby. I think you will find the people here are most friendly. I came over from the Model Railroad forums some time ago, and there is no comparison. The people make all the difference.

[altterrain]

 St. Aubins is good for phone orders and you can get their prices from the website but I have not had success ordering it from it - http://www.staubintrains.com/trainshop/default.asp . I have had great customer service and bullet proof online ordering from Ridge Road Station - http://www.ridgeroadstation.com/trains.shtml.

 -Brian

[Greg Elmassian]

Might I suggest my web site: http://www.elmassian.com try reading the faq and the sections on track, layout design. I sort of wrote down the decision processes I used to make the big decisions.

On track, you need to determine if you are going to run battery or track power... then you have some further decisions. That will allow you to determine what kind of track.

Then depending on your climate, you can determine what kind of roadbed you need, from gravel on the ground, to 2x6 PT lumber, to ladder track, to poured concrete roadbed. Really have to understand weather, frost heave, water runoff, animals, etc.

You should have a good idea what era you want to model, or if it does not matter. Whether to run narrow gauge or standard gauge will probably fall out of this decision process.

All of that together will allow you to start thinking about your layout, round and round, operating, display, etc.

The best thing I did starting this hobby was reading all the posts on all the forums I could find. I read for a while before posting anything, for fear of being dumb. Turns out I did not have to wait as long as I did, but there is a heck of a lot of good stuff out there to read.

Regards, Greg

[GearDrivenSteam]

Wholesale Trains has the best prices on track I've found hands down. 

http://www.wholesaletrains.com/GProducts2.asp?Scale=G&Item=ARTBRASS

[Capt Bob Johnson]

Keep the main objective in sight --- to get something down and running!   Don't spend too long agonizing over things or you'll be so old you can't get down on your knees to do it once you figure it out!

[Dick Friedman]

One of my favorite places to learn about this hobby is Paul Race's website <http://www.btcomm.com/trains/.  Not only is it well written, literate, and well documented, but Paul does not indulge in accusations, distortions, or preferences for particular commercial enterprises.

The website is very well organized and I think that a beginner (or someone who is coming from other model railroading) will be able to find answers to questions easily.

 Check it out, you'll be glad you did.  And no, I'm not Paul's evil twin brother.  I'm the nice one!