Isn't it amazing how involved we can get when it comes to our Garden Railroad? It truly is the best hobby in the world. It involves several different areas of interest. Trains, railroad history, model making, electronics, scenery, gardening, painting, masonry, water features and the countless off-shoots of each of these. At 59 years young, I have never found such satisfaction with any one hobby-activity as I do with my railroad and the town of Croaker Diggs. 2 years ago, we had to move. And the funny thing about it, we had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the house, but 90% of my concern and regret about moving was - What to do about the 'Diggs? How do you move a railroad? What if something keeps me from rebuilding? It was very traumatic shutting down the water pump for the last time and ripping up that first piece of track and cutting wires and water lines, uprooting trestle - bent after bent - some not surviving the move. Thousand of hours of work, disassembled, wrapped and packed. Packed it all up, I did, along with all the memories and experiences that I got building the 'Diggs. Packed in each of the boxes along with engines, rolling stock, buildings and all the figures was a commitment to re-build - only bigger and better. And the sooner the better. Sounds silly to some but I felt that I owed the fictitious 'towns-folk' a commitment to get them back home as soon as possible. Now after 2+ years I just received a box of track to complete the main loop of the new Croaker Diggs. The main area is now 130' x 45' with 280+ ft of track and has 80 feet of river feature, and 3 waterfalls (1 still on drawing board), 1 tunnel and 12 buildings so far and I have a long way to go. Building a G-scale railroad is a journey, and not a destination. I keep reminding myself of that. We're in the Nevada desert now, not the Northern California forest. The challenges will be different and there will be problems and there will be celebration of solutions. I can't wait. I wont be moving again. We won't be moving again. There is 1200 ft of underground cable for lights, sensors, speakers, video, LocoNet etc etc as well as 4 separate PVC water distribution lines that cris-cross the entire area. On Nov 11, 2012 at 6:20PM I placed my 4-4-0 Bachmann Loco on the rails for the first time, turned on the power supply, fired up the Digitrax controller and ran the engine around the loop for the first time and no one here can quite understand how important that single loop run was to me. But my friends out there understand. We have now arrived at Croaker Diggs Station. All aboard!
Follow the adventure - http://www.croakerdiggs.com
Good for you! Hope the new location works out to meet all your expectations.
Best,
TJ
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TJsTrains.com - Stop by - lots of pictures
Congrats on your move. I know how hard that is as I've done it several times. Mine has improved each time as it sounds like yours has too. I did get rid of the track wires this time and went battery power. I can see since you have a significant investment in Digitrax that you stayed with track power. Please post some construction pics.
Rex
Good for you now you can take your time to carry on a a pace that's suits you, I take the director as given the right of way permission, that the planting of bushes in the desert are the right ones. Enjoy doing it we are hopfuly going to get a good summer for running trains
Age is only a state of mind, keep the mind active and enjoy life
I have just completed a move from Delaware to Utah. I had a 600 ft railroad in the woods in DE. In October of 2011 I took it all up, and we moved from Delaware to Utah. After settling in the house, in April of 2012 I went to work in the back yard.. The layout took eight years to build in DE, and six months to rebuild here in Utah. On November 16 we had an open house and was visited by 250 people who signed our register. I still can't believe that I did it in that short of time.
This small blog will document what I have done here.
http://thenewredmountainrr.blogspot.com/
Paul
Nice saloon model.
Having torn down and rebuilt my indoor layout 4 times now I know the feeling. One of the prime reasons I'm keeping the new layout small and hopefully easier to deal with.
Have fun with your trains
Well Delta Northern ( Version 10 ) says it all, looks like I will be working on the RR this weekend ( Warmer ).
Dave
The head is gray, hands don't work , back is weak, legs give out, eyes are gone, money go's and my wife still love's Me.
wish i could work on mine but it just started to peek through the snow and its supposed to snow.
When I read about the evils of drinking I quit reading.
And I wish that I could work on mine but it's way too hot over here; at the moment 39C and 85% humidity makes for not happy railroading:(
I have to wait until around 8pm for it to cool down enough to run a train..................that's past my bedtime!
He who has the most trains wins!!
ha ha i guess we all have to work around the weather dealt to us oh well 46 or so more days till spring
Thanks for the reply Rex - I believe this is my last move (famous last words) I have considered battery power but only lately and have pretty much decided against the expense of conversion. I may do it on a trial basis on one engine when I get time. I am in the process of installing a dpdt switch on the track power so I can switch between DCC and analog. Will take some more pics - check out our site at croakerdiggs dot com. Shu
Thanks for the reply Paul - 600 ft of rail - wow. Delaware to Utah is quite a change for yourself and your railroad. We moved here in the Nevada upper desert from the sierras at 4,000 ft. New challenges the whole way for sure. 250 visitors, thats amazing. I need to get involved with a club and hopefully I could get some visitors also. Shu
What really helped was the two page news paper article they ran on my layout and one other,. The club is mostly HO and O, there are only three of us. But we had the largest attendance of anyone. It was great.
Some times a move is good!
This is what I had.
Then I was told we want this now!
So I moved it!
Worth it for sure!
Sean
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