What do I Need To Get Started? Other than a place to put your railroad, you need a Large Scale starter set made of weather-resistant materials such as an AristoCraft Freight Starter Set. This set is especially useful because it comes with a remote control, so you can operate your railroad from up to fifty feet away without being tied down to a control box.

Trains look better and run better on larger curves, so consider saving the track that came with the starter set to use for holiday displays and buy a bigger circle of track to use outside. If you have the room, consider a 5'-diameter track circle or better yet, a 10'-diameter track circle. (Yes, a 31.4'-long "railroad" may seem big while you have a box of track in the house, but you'll find that it looks "about right" in your yard, as long as you can fit it in.) You can also extend either circle into an oval with 1' or 3' straight pieces.

The power supply that comes with your train set will run a relatively small railroad fine outdoors as long as you make good connections between the rails (AristoCraft rails screw together, for example) and occasionally wipe the rails to keep them clean.

Other than this minimal investment in your train, you'll also spend money on such items as gravel, lumber, mulch, and plants as your railroad takes shape.

What If I Just Want To Try Things Out Before I Get Out the Shovel?

Pour the gravel on the track until the track is buried an inch or more deep. Then, shaking the track lightly, pull the track up through the gravel until only the top of the ties show. Pull any large pieces out from between the rails, then use a broom to "dust" off the ties and even out the gravel. Applying gravel to hold the track in place is called "ballasting." Add more gravel to any low places to make the track more even, wipe the top of the rails clean, set out the train, hook up the power, and watch it run.

What If I Want Something More Permanent?

While you're planning your railroad, don't forget to plan the garden around it. A well-designed garden with a relatively small amount of "train stuff" is often more rewarding than a bunch of "train stuff" shoehorned into a badly-designed plot. For one thing, the garden is there 12 months a year, even on days you don't have a chance to run trains. Many techniques used by rock gardeners apply equally to garden railroads; in fact, learning about rock gardens will help you design your railroad as much as learning about trains.

There are almost as many ways to build a garden railroad as there are garden railroads, but you might want to start with one of the two most common methods.

Ground-Level Trench Roadbed The most common ground-level railroad is built by digging a trench 5" wide and 4-6" deep, filling it with crushed gravel, then laying the track on top of the gravel and ballasting it by pouring a thin layer of fine crushed gravel on top of it and sweeping the excess out from between the rails. One popular variation of this method is to use rock garden or retaining wall techniques to build a raised area, truck in and tamp down a few cubic yards of dirt, then dig the trench in the raised area. This method appeals to people who want a raised railroad and aren't entirely comfortable with the carpentry involved in the method described below. However, the new soil will keep settling for a few years, no matter how much you tamp it down, so you'll want to keep some extra ballast on hand until it stabilizes.

Raised Pressure-Treated Roadbed

The most common raised railroad is made by making a wooden "roadbed" out of 2x6" pressure-treated lumber, connected by 1x6" "plates" and supported on 4x4" posts. The length and angle of each 2x6" piece you cut depends on the kind of track you're using, but once you've cut a few, and tried them out to make certain you're doing it right, the rest go very quickly. Each piece of 2x6" is fastened to the next by a foot-long 1x6" plate that goes under the 2x6". Most people like to assemble three or four lengths of 2x6" together with the 1x6" plates and lay some track on them temporarily to make certain they've measured right before they fasten the whole thing together. This also gives you a chance to lay the completed roadbed out on the ground and doublecheck where your post holes will go. If you don't plan to backfill at all, you may consider using DekBlocks or a similar product to support your posts, although you'll need to cross-brace between the posts if you raise the railroad more than 24" from the ground. One you get your superstructure established, you may cut off any objectionable corners of the 2x6s or 1x6s with a power saw. Don't nail or screw your track to the wood; the brass expands at a different rate than the wood and may pull the rails away from the ties if they're fastened down. You could wire the ties down loosely every so many feet, if you're paranoid about the track slipping off the roadbed, although that seldom happens, and almost never happens to track that has been backfilled and ballasted.

I've Got My Train Running; Now What?

To give your trains a reason to run, you can add pre-built weather resistant stations such as the AristoCraft built-up passenger station or other buildings such as the AristoCraft built-up farm house.

Where Can I Learn More?

But whatever you do, or whatever else you think you need to know, don't fall prey to "paralysis by analysis." The very best way to learn about garden railroading is to do it.

Best of luck,

Paul D. Race, Editor for Family Garden Trains