new garden railway

[grandpopswalt]

Bravo DryHeatDan. That's excellent advice and very well written. We all look forward to more contributions from you.

Walt

[Anonymous]

Hackmo,

You’re where I was two months ago – fascinated by the trains but completely confused by the myriad of options. Aristo Craft, LGB, Bachmann, Accucraft? 1:22.5, 1:29, 1:32? Battery, track power, DCC? (And what the heck is DCC, anyway? Isn't that our nation's capitol?) American ties, European ties? You begin to wonder if the fog will ever clear.

Being a fellow newbie, I am hardly the one to offer many answers but there is a BUNCH of info in these forums and on the internet. I’m also finding that people in this hobby love to share and to help. As a fellow newbie, let me share a couple of things I’ve found over the last few months. I qualify my comments by saying that these are only my opinions and based on my experiences and ask forgiveness in advance if I offend anyone or accidentally tweak any forum rules.

As others have said, read all you can from the forums. Great stuff and pictures. Then Google “Garden Railroad”, “G gauge”, etc for internet information. There’s lots of it out there.

I learned a lot from an article on “Mixing and Matching Large Scale Cars/Sample Car Measurements” at

http://www.btcomm.com/trains/archives/measure.htm

This cleared up the scale conundrum for me and the fog began to lift a little. It seems that manufacturers specialize (mostly) in particular scales. Bachmann does 1:22.5, Aristo does 1:29, etc. I still didn’t know what scale I wanted, though.

The scale issue became clearer when I decided what type of locomotive most interested me. I discovered that particular manufacturers, while offering both steam and diesel locomotives, tend more towards one or the other. In going to the dealer websites (I used Wholesale Trains, Ridge Road, and St. Aubin, but there are lots of others, as well as the manufacturers’ websites) and I probably looked at ALL the manufacturers and the locomotives they offer – you’ll get a feel pretty quickly for what you like. Your own loco preferences and the article above will help you decide on which manufacturers to focus on and in turn you will start to focus on a particular scale. I love the older diesels that are offered by certain manufacturers and, therefore, decided to go with 1:29.

Before go any further (like ordering anything), I also suggest you read “Building a Garden Railroad on a Budget” at

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

It has some good tips that will hopefully help us avoid at least SOME expensive missteps.

So far my railroad consists of a subscription to Garden Railways magazine (not a plug but I love it), a box car (1:22.5 scale, but oh well) and four pieces of track, all of which my wife gave me for Christmas. She keeps saying, “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” and I keep replying, “O-o-o-h Yeah!!!” I have a brand new yard so most of my rail construction will have to wait until next year but getting there will be half the fun. I hope you have as much fun, Hackmo.

[tangerine-jack]

[#welcome]
Tough questions all, perhaps you should ask "how long is a piece of string?" might be easier to answer. The hardest part is in deciding what YOU want to do, then go out and find what's available. As mentioned before, there are a multitude of choices in scale, guage, power controll etc etc etc. Check out the posts on this forum, go to the public library and check out some books on Garden Railways, and then decide what is right for you.

My personal reccomendation would be to purchase a starter set, either LGB (if you can get one on sale) or any Bachmann Big Hauler sets (ditch the B'mann track and buy some brass) then put a small loop in your yard where you want the railway to be. Run the train, learn a lot, and get tons of ideas. Then once you've decided what works and what doesn't for you, go out and spend money on what will fit your needs. In the mean time, while you are running your loop of track, read these forums and ask questions, research and gather info.

Good luck!

[cabbage]

[}:)](cough!!!)[}:)]

1:19.1 is 16mm scale and is NOT "G" anything!!!

Infact NMRA does not admit it exists, despite the 16mm society having over 3,500 members in the UK alone... I run 'O' gauge 32mm track outside and on it I also run 'O' scale 1:43 models as well. There is nothing stopping you using 32mm track outdoors provided it is UV stable and designed for this environment. I use PECO SM32 track

This scale is used for narrow gauge layouts normally 2 foot (32mm) and Metre/Cape gauge (45mm).

It is a nice scale to use -there are a lot of now extinct 2 foot / Metre / Cape railways for you to be inspired by

Since the track will always be expensive it should be considered as an investment -to me 16mm scale enabled me to use my investment to the full!

regards

ralph

[ttrigg]

hackmo;

There are litteraly tons of info, dealing with ALL of the questions you have posed. Go back through all the previous threads and you will find some brilliant, and some rather heated discussions about size and scale. As you explore these postings you will soon see that the "G" in "G scale" stands for garden, and NOT a meausred size of model rr. (1:19, 1:20, 1:22.5 , , , , , , , , 1:30 ratios. etc.) After reading every post that has been done in the last month, then go read the two stickies at the top of the forum. Lots of good info there too!

[hackmo15]

Hi,
I'm considering starting a garden railway. I have a real nice space and want some input on size and type of trains to use. It seems the G scale is the size to use outdoors, but could the O scale be used? Should I use track powered trains or battery powered trains. After that I need to decide on brands. Are all the track sizes the same?, so that any train can run on any track?
I know this is a lot of info I'm asking for, but all help will be appreciated.
Thanks
hackmo