You Are Here.
Jump to other pages.
July, 2017 Update from Family Garden Trains<sup><small>TM</small></sup>.  This is a photo of Bob Treat's railroad, noted for its great rock formations, made of cleverly molded concrete.    Click to see a bigger photo. Garden Railroading Primer Articles: All about getting a Garden Railroad up and running wellGarden Train Store: Index to train, track, and other products for Garden Railroading
Large Scale Starter Sets: Begin with a train you'll be proud to runBest Choices for Beginning Garden Railroaders: a short list of things you're most likely to need when starting out
Large Scale Track order FormSturdy buildings for your garden railroad.
Large Scale Christmas Trains: Trains with a holiday theme for garden or professional display railroads.Free Large Scale Signs and Graphics: Bring your railroad to life with street signs, business signs, and railroad signs
Garden Railroading Books, Magazines, and Videos: Where to go to learn even more
Collectible Trains and Villages: On30 Trains and accessories designed by Thomas Kinkade and others

Written by Paul D. Race for Family Garden TrainsTM


Please Read: How to Help Our Site at No Cost to You - Some of our articles contain recommendations for products we like and vendors we personally trust. Some of those vendors may pay us a very small commission if you click on a link and buy their products. This costs you nothing at all and helps offset the costs of what we do. So if we point you to something you decide to buy later, please make certain you come back through our site and click on the link directly. Thanks.





























































































July, 2017 Update from Family Garden TrainsTM

Note: This is the web version of a newsletter from the Family Garden TrainsTM web site, which publishes information about running big model trains in your garden as a family activity.

If you are not subscribed to the Family Garden Trains newsletter, and you would like to subscribe, please join our Mailing List, and specify that you want to receive e-mail updates.

Also, if you would like to subscribe to our free newsletter for indoor railroads and seasonal display villages, please join the "Trains-N-TownsTM mailing list. You can subscribe to either, both, or neither, and we will just be glad to be of service, no matter what you decide.

Fine Print: If you are receiving our e-mail updates and you no longer wish to subscribe, please e-mail me with a "Please Unsubscribe" message (worded any way you wish), and we will graciously remove you from our list.

In This Issue

Longtime readers know that I've been involved with garden railroading since the mid-1980s, and I started my first "permanent" garden railroad in 1999, near Springfield, Ohio. In that course of time, I've written hundreds of articles, some of which are hopelessly outdated by now, though I've tried to re-visit the core articles periodically. I've also seen beloved brands come and go, and many new products and techniques tried.

In the eighteen years that the New Boston and Donnels Creek graced the back yard of our old house, I had to rework many things that didn't work out the way folks in other climates said they would. Replacing weed-friendly packed-gravel "roadbed" with concrete, for one, replacing deteriorating railroad ties with ground-rated pressure-treated lumber for another. Pulling out all the turnouts that I couldn't reach easily was another; not to mention trying several different ways to light buildings and power the track.

Here's an irony - at least a few visitors who had read about our railroad from the beginning seemed to think there should be more to it than there was. What they didn't see or know is how many times I had to rework something just to keep trains running at all. If the New Boston and Donnels Creek had been twice as large, I might have given up and pulled up the track years ago. That may sound harsh, but I know a number of people who have done just that - started off huge using techniques that seem to work for other people only to discover that the burden of maintaining all that right-of-way, trimming all those conifers, weeding all those thyme patches, etc. was far greater than they'd imagined. While, frankly, if they had learned more before they plunged in, and started smaller, they may have saved themselves a great deal of work.

The last thing I want to do is discourage new people from getting involved - after all, you'll notice that the vast majority of my articles are targeted to "newbies," and I love helping people get off on the right foot, as it were.

But I have also recommended visiting area garden railroads to see what is working and not working in your region, as well as starting a small "proof-of-concept" railroad somewhere to make certain you know what you're getting into and that your approach is viable, before you bring in the backhoe.

So now I have the chance to make something new and to incorporate all my "lessons learned." So I'm as anxious to get started as you may be to stop reading about my interminable planning exercises. Of course we've also been very busy getting the new house in order, so to speak. And some things just have to be prioritized, like getting the vegetable garden in before mid-summer. But the good outcome of that is that it gave me time to get a sense of how things really needed to be laid out in the back yard.

The next three weeks are going to be ridiculously busy with "real-world" stuff, so now I probably won't be breaking ground for the railroad before late July. But now I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do.

And in the meantime, I've built three raised garden beds, using techniques that would be just as useful for a garden railroad as they are for a vegetable garden.

And I've taken some time to consider how much the hobby has changed the 50 years since LGB trains first crossed the Atlantic, including what we've gained and what we've lost. So starting a series of articles on our own "Fallen Flags" seemed appropriate.

The following content is linked to or included in this newsletter:

Click to go to articlePlanning the NEW New Boston and Donnels Creek, Part 4

File under "best-laid plans." The rented post-hole digger did not work out the way we thought, but we needed to get our vegetable garden in the ground ASAP, so we dug 24 2'-deep post-holes by hand over a three-day period, then made our raised garden beds. Which actually gave me some more ideas on how a person could use the same approach to build a low-maintenance, handicapped-accessible raised garden railroad.

In the meantime, I had staked out where the railroad I plan to build should go, but I changed my mind one more time while I was working on the raised garden beds.

Click on the following link to see where we were as of late May, 2017.

Click to go to articleFallen Flags of Garden Railroading

Fifty years after LGB reinvigorated the garden railroading hobby in North America, a number of other brands have come and gone, including several that left a permanent mark on the hobby. We hope to be addressing these more or less in chronological order, starting with Kalamazoo, one of the first manufacturers in modern times to create garden trains that looked like they belonged in North America.

Click on the following link to see our introductory article about the "fallen flags" of garden railroading.

Click on the following link to see our article about Kalamazoo trains.

Garden Railroading in Mid-Summer

If you haven't done your spring "cleanup" yet, please revisit our last newsletter and get out there. Depending on the weather - which has been more unpredictable than usual, even for Ohio, you may go from monsoon to drought in a day or so, so be ready to start irrigating or sprinkling any time you have more than a couple hot sunny days in a row. Last year we had a number of hot, dry winds that sucked the moisture out of everything in a matter of hours, so pay attention, in case you get this phenomenon.

You might also be on the lookout for invasive species. About ten years ago, Ohio and Michigan gardeners started being plagued by weed grasses that never grew north of the Ohio river before. In about the same timeframe, I've noticed an increasing amount of Virginia Creeper, a vine that looks like a cross between poison ivy and buckeye, a weed that we used to see all over Tennessee, but which we never saw in our part of the country. Kudzu, "The Vine That Ate the South," has been getting a foothold in Ohio, as well. And don't you dare think those bamboo plants are cute - some of them spread by long, deep roots and grow as much as a foot a day once they've established.

The short version is that if something appears in your flower beds or gardens that you didn't plant there, assume it is an invader and treat it as such before it establishes a "beach-head" - ESPECIALLY if you don't recognize it. In the meantime, mulching heavily in places where there aren't supposed to be any plants at all will also give you a little help with weed control.

Don't assume those weed fabrics will be much help - when they say they're guaranteed for one year, that's really only one season - when you buy the thing in May and by next May, the thing is split and letting all kinds of weeds grow up, do you really think ripping it out and taking it back the store is going to do you any good?

Once you have the weeds under some sort of control, just be sure to make your rounds every few days to keep it that way. Bring your dandelion knife, and don't be afraid to use it on weeds that you might be able to pull out by hand in damper weather.

And even if you don't typically sprinkle or irrigate, consider wetting things down before any visitors arrive or anyone takes photos - most plants look a little better after a recent drink.

Keep in Touch

Finally, please let us know about your ongoing projects. Ask questions, send corrections, suggest article ideas, send photos, whatever you think will help you or your fellow railroaders. In the meantime, enjoy your trains, and especially enjoy any time you have with your family in the coming weeks,

Paul Race

FamilyGardenTrains.com

To view the newsletter for May, 2017, click on the following link:

To read more, or to look at recommended Garden Railroading and Big Indoor Train products, please click on the index pages below.

Visit our Garden Train Store<sup><small>TM</small></sup> Bachmann Starter Set Buyer's Guide








































































Click to see buildings for your garden railroad
























































Note: Family Garden TrainsTM, Garden Train StoreTM, Big Christmas TrainsTM, BIG Indoor TrainsTM, and BIG Train StoreTM are trademarks of
Breakthrough Communications (btcomm.com). All information, data, text, and illustrations on this web site are
Copyright (c) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017by
Paul D. Race. Reuse or republication without prior written permission is specifically forbidden.
Family Garden Trains is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program,
an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising
fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.


For more information, please contact us

Click to see new and vintage-style Lionel trains.
Click to see new and vintage-style Lionel trains

Visit related pages and affiliated sites:
- Trains and Hobbies -
Return to Family Garden Trains Home page
Return to Big Indoor Trains Home page
Garden Railroading Primer Articles: All about getting a Garden Railroad up and running well Big Indoor Trains Primer Articles: All about setting up and displaying indoor display trains and towns. Garden Train Store: Index to train, track, and other products for Garden RailroadingBig Christmas Trains: Directory of Large Scale and O Scale trains with holiday themes
On30 and O Gauge trains to go with indoor display villages and railroads
Visit Lionel Trains. Click to see Thomas Kinkaded-inspired Holiday Trains and Villages. Big Christmas Train Primer: Choosing and using model trains with holiday themes Free Large Scale Signs and Graphics: Bring your railroad to life with street signs, business signs, and railroad signs Click to see HO scale trains with your favorite team's colors.
- Christmas Memories and Collectibles -
Visit the FamilyChristmasOnline site. Visit Howard Lamey's glitterhouse gallery, with free project plans, graphics, and instructions. Click to return to the Old Christmas Tree Lights Table of Contents Page Click to sign up for Maria Cudequest's craft and collectibles blog.
Click to visit Fred's Noel-Kat store.
Visit the largest and most complete cardboard Christmas 'Putz' house resource on the Internet.
- Family Activities and Crafts -
Click to see reviews of our favorite family-friendly Christmas movies. Free, Family-Friendly Christmas Stories Decorate your tree the old-fashioned way with these kid-friendly projects. Free plans and instructions for starting a hobby building vintage-style cardboard Christmas houses. Click to find free, family-friendly Christmas poems and - in some cases - their stories. Traditional Home-Made Ornaments
- Music -
Heartland-inspired music, history, and acoustic instrument tips.
Best-loved railroad songs and the stories behind them.
Learn important guitar chords quickly, to jump start your ability to play along on any song. With a few tools and an hour or two of work, you can make your guitar, banjo, or mandolin much more responsive.  Instruments with movable bridges can have better-than-new intonation as well. Resources for learning Folk Music and instruments quickly Check out our article on finding good used guitars.
Carols of many countries, including music, lyrics, and the story behind the songs. X and Y-generation Christians take Contemporary Christian music, including worship, for granted, but the first generation of Contemporary Christian musicians faced strong, and often bitter resistance. Different kinds of music call for different kinds of banjos.  Just trying to steer you in the right direction. New, used, or vintage - tips for whatever your needs and preferences. Wax recordings from the early 1900s, mostly collected by George Nelson.  Download them all for a 'period' album. Explains the various kinds of acoustic guitar and what to look for in each.
Look to Riverboat Music buyers' guide for descriptions of musical instruments by people who play musical instruments. Learn 5-string banjo at your own speed, with many examples and user-friendly explanations. Explains the various kinds of banjos and what each is good for. Learn more about our newsletter for roots-based and acoustic music. Folks with Bb or Eb instruments can contribute to worship services, but the WAY they do depends on the way the worship leader approaches the music. A page devoted to some of Paul's own music endeavors.