Outdoor Patio fence HO railway

[cacole]

The biggest problem I see with trying HO outdoors, particularly here in Arizona, is sun damage. No HO scale track, locomotives, or rolling stock are made for outdoor use like G-scale is, and the sun would melt or seriously warp crossties and other plastics.

The sun shining through a window at the Cochise & Western Model Railroad club's layout in the early morning caused some Rivarossi passenger cars to warp horribly out of shape, even in the Wintertime in an unheated building.

Want to try a simple experiment? Place a piece of HO scale track and a piece of rolling stock outdoors for a month and see what happens to them.

[exPalaceDog]

Years ago, September 1964, on page 42, MR published an article, "Out door HO? Why not?"

Basically, the author, James Sherrard, had built most of his layout outdoors on a shelf surported by a patio type fence. He had rigged up a plastic awning to cover the layout when not in use.

The author reported fairly successfully results, but it must be noted that the pike was in California.

Has anybody else tried HO model railroading outdoors with the track being mounted on a fence? If so, what were the results?

Have fun