Hello....

[Anonymous]

Hey Ya'll

Normally I was a Toy Train fanatic, but I decided to experiment with other scales and gauges to see what works for me. So, here I am.

I must admit, I haven't missed an issue of Garden Railways for two or three years, as well as Classic Toy Trains, which I have goten for 5 stight years.

So, whats the deal with Large Scale? I know a god bit from my reading and I might like to try my hand at building a small railroad and maybe a live steam engine.

Cheers,
steel rails

[John Busby]

Hi steel rails
There is three ways large scale can be treated.
AS a toy train anything goes and who cares, Try and capture the atmosphere and feel of
a real railway, and last pick a scale and buy and build everything to that with no exeptions.
All can be done indoors or outside.
Outside in the garden is a whole different ball game to indoor modelling as as well as the trains you have to cope with the weather and all the civil enginnering problems a 1:1 RR has to cope with.
Most seem to go for the create the atmosphere and feel of a real railway
which means keeping things in proportion to each other rather than dead scale most of us work to a nominal scale which can be very nominal at times for the simple reason
that the manufacturers products are all over the place scale wise.
Fiddely bits that break are not a good idea in the garden.
Added to which the manufacturers refuse to mark the products with a definate scale
Steam is great but not cheap I waited 1/2 a life time before I could afford the two I have.
The TOTAL cost is around the same as any other model railway you just have to spend bigger bits of it at a time but the size of the trains makes it easy to make a lot of things your self to get the costs down to a reasonable level
Don't forget some of the cost is actualy really the garden so the costing can get a bit
Blurred at the edges as to, is it garden or is it railway expence.
Thats my thoughts back off into the garden.
regards John

[kimbrit]

With garden railways you learn to be tolerent. With smaller scales you don't like people touching them in case they break something, this is in the garden, birds ***p on them, they (and other animals) pinch your ballast and scratch dirt all over the track, your lineside stuff gets weathered in very quickly then falls apart, you spend hundreds of pounds/dollars on track and leave it outside...........need I go on!! But, at the end of the day when you're sat there, in the sunshine, a cold bottle of beer in hand and you're watching your favourite loco go around your creation, it doesn't get any better.
Kim

[Tom The Brat]

You're not stuck inside any more. Get your trains out in the garden!

Cuprium Advante!

[tangerine-jack]

Hello Steel rails!

I agree with John, there seem to be 3 camps of the garden railroad variety:
1. The toy or "whimsey" group where you run what you want, when you want and do what you want.
2. The more or less small railroad creators that have a miniature railroad that moves a product from point A to point B, but aren't very concerned about prototypes or exact scales
3. The rivit counters

I belong to group 2, sometimes I foray into group 1, group 3 for me is pointless as Kim noted because you have 1:1 scale issues to contend with. Whatever you decide, the important thing is to have fun doing it. Large scale can be done inside or out, but personaly I don't think GARDEN railroading should be done inside, it is a different animal all together from indoor scales. Besides, once you go garden, you don't go back!

[whiterab]

Three big issues got me into G guage.

1. It gets me outside and fully excercised. Instead of being hunched over a work table, most of my time is spent moving tons of dirt and rock. I'm never alone on the layout. When Wanda is not there I'm sharing the layout with tons of birds and other critters. Okay, I don't appreciate the scorpians and the armadillos but I've learned to live with them.

2. It a hobby we can share. Wanda has actually forced me to learn something about plants and she has discovered how much fun it is to play with tools and to build the buildings for the layout.

3. Old age is creeping up and it is a lot easier to do the details in 1:20 than it is in smaller scales [:D]

I also strongly support Kim's proposition that you learn to be more tolerant. As John mentioned, if you get too caught up in "perfect" things just fall apart. It's all a compromise between scale/details and how well things stand up outside.

That said, with a little more work you can have great looking scale buildings and bridges that you can drop kick or the dog can knock over and still not worry about any real damage being done.

One downside, is that you get addicted to weather forecast on TV. The big question each evening is "Is it going to be nice enough for me to go outside and play tomorrow?"

[Anonymous]

Cool,

Does anyone have problems with Snakes in the Garden?

I am terrified of sankes and my only fear it that when I build my railroad a train will derail in the tunnel and when I reach in to get it, I'd get something more than a train car and have to take a trip to the hospital.

We live in a development and our house is on the back border where there is a thick patch of woods, so say if we lived in the middle without the woods, then I wouldn't have this fear.

steel rails

[Tom The Brat]

That's easy... skip the tunnel.

[Capt Bob Johnson]

Use a boathook or one of those things they sell for the little old ladies to get the Wheaties box off the top shelf. Most medical supply stores sell them!

Could regularly salt the tunnels with sulphur powder as snakes reportedly don't like it!
Don't know if mothballs would work, but they sure repel me. Ace hardware has some kind of snake repellant, but I think i read on the label it only works on certain kinds of snakes.

Keep the tunnels short enough to both see and reach!

Use the 4" thick upholstery foam to close off the tunnel entrances when not in use. if cut slightly bigger than entrance it forms a good seal and snakes, skunks, squirrells, and even domestic cats and dogs can't sneak in there when you aren't looking!

Could also use rerailer sections the length of the tunnel (a bit expensive, but might work).

Don't feel bad about it. I keep a very sharp hoe around to behead them! I think if I had one surprise me it would die instantly in the rather large brown pile that would immediately surround it!

[tangerine-jack]

You can pick up some Snake-B-Gone at your local lawn and garden center, just sprinkle a little around and you won't have any snake problems. Snakes are very shy and stay away from activity, if you have a dog or a bunch of active kids, that would tend to keep snakes away. Your only other choices are buying a mongoose or an owl- both of which would love a nice snake lunch.

It's just one of the 1:1 scale problems you get in Garden Railroading that you don't have to worry about with indoor scales.

[Anonymous]

Well steel rails you will hear it direct from me, i thought you sounded pretty silly when you first came on and i am only contributing anything, because Kim and Jack have made comments and i can't let them get away with too much.

In Jacks ideas i am a 1. I don't care about moving anything nor do i count rivets, in fact i feel sorry for rivet counters i feel they have little in their lives.

My interest is in building the actual way and laying track and in building and utilising track devices such as bridges vuiaducts, tunnels and these days i am getting more and more into technicalities to do with making the operation of my layout more and more sophisticated i am on the verge of having to go to computer control but i do not have the computer skills to do that. I also have a geat interest in prototypical sound and track side plants ie my layout is a botanical railway.

But this hobby has many variations to it and no one idea is absolutely correct or incorrect and to each his own.

I hope you get going and the first thing you need to do is to get something to run and something to run on, as minimal as possible s you will certainly change your mind as you go along, so less is more and take it easy in purchasing new stuff.

Rgds Ian

[Anonymous]

Yup,

You are right about those Rivit Counters. I mean, where is the fun if you are to busy making sure that every thing is perfect in every way.

I'd rather run a colorful train and have fun than run a realistic, drab one and worry about how it looks going round curves and if there is enough detail.

I'd much rather run, say an LGB Stainz or some other small locomotive like that (I am partial to european as well as american trains) than an, Aristo Craft Dash 9 with scale freight cars.

Got to go, just go the new Harry Potter movie today (3-7-06), so I got to finish it before I go to bed.

steel rails