General Discussion (Garden Railways)

 Thank you for all your respones to my questions so far. I have now changed my mind from getting LGB trains (1) because of high cost (2) Aristocraft has me sold with their wireless remote control. It seems pretty easy for a novice like me and I am going to give it a try.(3) I can get great looking American models .Aristocraft's locomotives and cars are not cheap either but I am saving a little each month to make a purchase by early spring. Right now with all the issues of LGB/Marklin I think I will get an LGB as a add on later, but to start with Aristo

If anyone knows of a great reasonable online store please let me know for the cheapest aristocraft locos. I also think I will opt for the stainless steel tracks (expensive too). I dont know if I should trust ebay.

HI THERE, NICE TO HAVE A NEW ONE INTERESTED IN THE HOBBY.

FOR MYSELF AND ONLY BEING ABOUT 40 MINUTES AWAY, I PURCHASE FROM ST. AULBINS, LOCATED IN WOODSTOCK, IL.  THEY HAVE A WEB-SITE, BUT THERE' RE MANY PLACES THAT SELL OVER THE NET AND IT'S GOOD TO COMPARE PRICES.  TYPE IN G-SCALE AND TAKE A LOOK.

JOHN

 St. Aubins is good and goes to most of the big large scale train shows so you can save on shipping.

If you live near one of the big shows - Spring or Fall East Coast Large Scale Train Show (ECLSTS), SE, SW, or Heart of America Garden Railway Shows or Nati'l Garden Railway Convention, go to the show, learn a lot and save on shipping

Other than than Ridge Road Station is my number 1 go to - [url]http://www.ridgeroadstation.com/trains.shtml[url]. TrainWorld is good (better to phone in the order), as well as RLD Hobbies - [url][http://rldhobbies.com/[/url).

 -Brian

 I'll second Brian's recommendation. Ridge Road is usually the cheapest, or close to it. RLD hobbies has been excellent in every respect for me. Trainworld you need to call them-the website is not entirely reliable. But otherwise they are very good

 If you use the ebay feature where you can sort results by those nearest to you, you can often find track locally. I've bought several boxes of track that way and avoided the shipping costs.

Since you are looking into Stainless for track, Aristocraft has in the past had a buy 2 get one free sale on track normaly in Jan/Feb time frame.  I myself am track poor. I resently purchased a 1/4 turn of 8ft dia and about 40ft of 2ft and 3 ft sections and 2-5ft sections to finnish my railroad (track only ). The cost was about $400. From my LHS.  I now can clame to have 260 of track ML-172, 2 passing sidings 43 and 45 foot long.  So to make a long story longer, PLAN ahead, I changed my last track plan 3 times before getting the most track in the smallest space and still leave room for plantings.  I also had 4 aristo 10w to use thats wy the finnal change. Am I happy with stainless you get a big YES. the only draw back is USAT with sliders they don't like aristo switch's, since I stoped running my slider equiped engines I have not had a derail.

Hope my rambeling on helps

Dave  

San Val was the best but they closed down last year, I've had good results with Wholesaletrains.com but just make sure what your ordering is listed as in stock as in "Ships in X days" or "Available" . Personally I only use LGB track, had to many derail issues with Aristos tight radius switches, can't say anything about the wide radius or SS turnouts, so others here can do that. Good Luck.

I find that Aristo's track, stainless or brass, is very good. In my experience the little screw joiners work quite well. I still have some places on my track where I use the screw jpoiners and not clamps. 

Aristo switches, on the other hand....not good. They need a lot of work to get them to go smoothly. The electric motors don't hold up at all. I have 4 aristo switches on my layout and they all gave me a lot of problems till I worked over them with a file and a soldering iron. They make stainless switches at a good price but be prepared to work on them

By the way, the yearly Aristo track sale, usually in January-February, is buy FOUR boxes get one box free, not buy 2 and get one free... that would be worth waiting a year for...

Regards, Greg

p.s. RLD Hobbies for me..

 I use Aristocraft brass track and have found it to be fine in conductivity when it is installed properly. But in dirtier sections of the railway, it had many problems, so I switched to batteries.

 Aristo switches are fine as long as you plan to hand-operate them.

 Actually, Aristo switches need work, I have several pages on what to do, and the solutions on my web site. You might not notice with all trains, but there are several things out of whack with them.

Undergauge, overgauge, frog problems.

See my site under track... 

Regards, Greg

 I am buying aristo because of the TRAIN ENGINEER remote controlled system, as for tracks I think Stainless steel. Anyone who is familiar with the train engineer please tell me about it. Thanks

Give Watts Train Shop in Zionsville Indiana a try for LGB or any other G scale brand, Dave is constantly buying huge LGB collections and probably has the most LGB under one roof in the country right now.  They also stock most everything else in G scale along with Lego, Playmobile, hundreds of figures and Carrara slot cars.  They gladly do mail order as well.  Good Luck with your trains.   Mike

"vs" is not a good way to look at apples and oranges. each has their goods and bads and they both give us the good choices.

Marty Cozad:

"vs" is not a good way to look at apples and oranges. each has their goods and bads and they both give us the good choices.

Wow, Marty, you do say a mouthful in a few words. I completely agree with you - each brand definitely has its strong points. And having both brands available (plus all the other brands) are good for our hobby.

I will concede that mi-cctrains did say at the top that he was mainly interested in Union Pacific models, so that did kind of eliminate Marklin/LGB as a primary source of rolling stock and engines unless he is willing to bash and re-paint.

Al

 And that lets out Bachmann too.

I look at everything that is offered from all brands, and when there is "overlap" only then do I have to decide one versus the other.

The only places that I have really found the need for that decision are:

Track - there are several manufacturers and of several metal kinds.

Electronics - many different options

Box cars - only the lowly box car and tank cars seem to be duplicated in 1:29, oh, maybe you could say hoppers, but really only the 40' box, 40' stock and 10,000 gallon tank cars are real dups.

There you choose from AML, Aristo, and USAT (in alphabetical order)...

Regards, Greg