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September, 2013 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.
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In this Issue
The Miami Valley Garden Railway Society has a big picnic every year. This year we had room to set up swap tables. This coincided with the fact that I just plain have too much stuff. So I've been going through kits or other project supplies I've accumulated and never did anything with, trying to decide if someone else could use it more than I. In some cases, I've identified a project as a "keeper" and will be trying to finish it. Of course, we're also planning to publish anything we learn in the process.
One of the "keepers" was a $20 Colorado Model Structures building - one of their earliest, and hardly the easiest or most impressive. Still, I've been promoting CMS structures for years, and have already written articles about two of them. So I figured it was time to take the little "Cascade Summit Dispatch Office" out of its shipping envelope and see what a decent paint job would do for it. As you'll see in the article, the results were not disappointing.
 When I was putting the final touches on the article (in which I admittedly put something like 12 hours into prepping a $20 model that I got as a gift), and looking at my photos, I started thinking about similar beveled-edge kit-built structures I've seen on other folks' railroads (this includes Korber, CMS, and a few others). In MOST cases, they don't look very good - not because the models are bad but because the paint and assembly jobs were rushed and careless. I have the feeling that the kit owners' paint job was affected by logic like "I'm not going to put $200 worth of work into painting a $20 building."
Maybe it's my upbringing - my parents were Depression babies who did more with less even when they didn't need to - but I often take it as a challenge to "do more with less." So I LIKE using $10 worth of spray paint and a lot of elbowgrease to make a $20 building more attractive and a lot more durable than the out-of-the-box $70-80 buildings. Folks who get a $20 model and treat it like a $20 model really do get what they pay for. Folks who get a $20 model and treat it like they would a $100 model get so much more out of it. If you ever get around to checking the Gallery page on Colorado Model Structures' web page, you'll see a few pieces that have a competent paint job period, but you'll see quite a few where the creativity and talent of the modeler made $20 or $50 worth of plastic look better than most $200 out-of-the-box models.
This is also the time of year I usually start getting my garden railroad ready for our annual "Christmas Train Day" open railroad. The good news is that having the railroad open this June means I've got certain things under control that I usually don't by this time of year. Hopefully that means that this year's "Christmas Train Day" will be bigger and better than ever. We'll keep you posted.
Finally, please accept our wishes for a great rest of the year. And please enjoy any time you can spend with your family in the coming months.
Topics discussed in this update include:
- Prepping a CMS Plastic House for Year-Round Service - a new how-to article to help you get attractive, durable buildings, even from inexpensive kits.
- Update for Structure Buyer's Guide - updated recommendation list, just in time for your Christmas list.
- Christmas Train Day, 2013 - A "Save the Date" for our sixth annual Christmas-themed open railroad, with outdoor trains, kids' trains, snacks, music, and more.
- Garden Railroading in Mid Autumn, including:
- New Halloween Building Projects for Indoor Trains and Towns - a new project for folks with indoor Halloween railroad - plus other Halloween-related fun.
- New Aristo 0-4-0, Tender and Caboose sets still available. - Small but mighty - Aristo's upgraded workhorse is still available in several paint jobs - how's your Christmas list?
- Collectible On30 Christmas Train Deadlines Approaching - a heads-up that Hawthorne Village's popular On30 train collections have been discontinued and may soon be difficult or impossible to find.
While cleaning out the "train shed" and other places that trains and train stuff have accumulated, I've come across a couple kits that I REALLY REALLY did plan to put together. One was the Colorado Model Structures Cascade Summit Dispatch Office - an inexpensive kit that was one on of CMS' early offerings and is often overlooked. I decided to paint it as a (small) private home instead of a railroad yard office, and to document every step, of course. Even if you don't need this particular structure, the preparations and steps I describe apply to almost all CMS structures. Most of the content applies to anyplastic building kit. Best of all, the end result is attractive and durable.
To see how we painted and assembled our Dispatch Office, please click on the following link:
Along with the new emphasis on kitbuilding, we have updated the Garden Train Store's Structure page to include mostly kits. I still like several of the pre-built buildings we used to feature. But A: those buildings are getting harder to come by, and B: they don't actually hold up as well as kits you paint properly. To see a nice selection of entry level building kits from multiple vendors, plus links to articles on painting and assembling those buildings, check out the following link.
We're already planning our sixth annual Christmas-themed open railroad with lots of entertainment options for the whole family. Once again, if you're are going to be anywhere near Springfield, Ohio in early November, put November 9 on your calendar.
To learn more about our November 9 Christmas-themed open railroad, and a few other regional Christmas-themed railroad activities, please click on the following link:
In so-called temperate zones, October brings shorter days, cooler temperatures, and the beginning of the annual falling leaf crisis. Weed growth should be non-existent, and most remaining gardening tasks can slide a week or three if they need to. So if you've been putting off a big, sweaty job, this may be the best month to do it, when you can start the job with a windbreaker and take it off as the day warms up.
The first heavy frost signifies that it's time to cut back perennials that will soon be freezing off at the ground anyway, including Hostas and Sweet Woodruff. On the other hand, a warm, damp October will still allow goldenrod, ragweed, thistle, or dandelions to pop up "out of nowhere," so keep your dandelion digging tool near the garden for a few more weeks (I keep one in an engine house where I can reach it in a hurry and avoid the temptation to pull the leaves off a plant and leave the root).
Some stores like to bring in trees, especially evergreens, with the idea that it's better to plant certain varieties in the fall. This is only true if you monitor the condition of the plant and make certain it has enough water until several frosts have come. Other plants may be closed out at very low prices or even discarded. Except for dwarf and low-lying conifers, which you can almost always use somewhere, don't buy a bunch of plants you don't really know what to do with. I also keep my eye out for Tom Thumb Cottoneaster, which seems to survive a fall planting well, and makes a nice miniature fruit tree when trimmed properly. Sedum tips that are poked into the ground in the fall may establish and even spread a little by spring if the winter is fairly mild. See the Family Garden Trains article on Inexpensive and Low-Maintenance Plants for Garden Railroads for more information about propagating sedums and other useful groundcovers.
Sometime between now and Thanksgiving, get any spring-blooming bulbs into the ground. Crocus and Grape Hyacinth provide great early spring color in plants that are small enough to keep from overwhelming your trains. For more ideas about fall bulbs, see Early Spring Color for your Garden Railroad.
Note: If you acquire a dwarf or low-lying conifer that needs trimming before it goes into the ground "permanently," place it somewhere where it will get shade and rain until you get to it. If you realize later that you're not going to get to it before the weather turns too cold, plant it in the ground pot and all, dash some water on it, and monitor its condition until you start getting multiple frosts in a row. Our article Trees for Your Trains contains some information on the mechanics of trimming dwarf conifers to improve their health and appearance.
As mentioned before, once frosts start hitting, you might as well cut down any plants that freeze off to the ground anyway, such as Hosta, Baptisa, Sweet Woodruff, Coreopsis. Consider cutting back (not down) plants that don't freeze back entirely, such as thyme, sedum, finger geranium (cranesbill), and lavender. Leave a few inches with foilage if you can (that may be impossible with thyme you've let get too long), but trimming them back now (or later in the winter) will help their growth next spring to be more compact and healthy-looking. Yes, it is possible to throw any patch of thyme into fatal or near-fatal shock by overtrimming, but in the case of overgrown "vulgaris" (common) thyme, you may have to weigh that risk against the liklihood that by next spring you'll have a bank of 12-inch plants with only 3 inches of foilage at the ends.
Once you've had a frost or two, you need to start getting your water plants ready for winter. I like to use non-rusting scissors to clip off and discard any remaining leaves from my water lilies (if you can't reach them all, that's okay, get what you can - you'll improve the health of your pond this winter if you keep them from staying and decaying). Most pond plants that protrude above the water should be trimmed back to the water line (although you may own a plant or two that are exceptions - refer to your supplier for specifics). If you have "shallow-water" plants in containers on shelves, you probably want to drop the containers into deep water for the winter - just remember to fish them out and put them back where they belong next spring. In my case, I have pickerel rushes in containers on a "shallow-water" shelf. I trim the rushes back to an inch or so above the soil line, then drop their pots into the deep center of the pond.
 The main thing, if you live where seasons change, is to make at least reasonable efforts to protect your pond from falling leaves. You can buy pond nets that catch most leaves (although they let those little maple "helicopters" through). One year when I didn't have a pond net, I actually bought a few yards of black polyester fabric petticoat netting (tulle) from JoAnne's fabric, doubled it over, and staked it down. That kept out pretty much any "tree poop," although it did only last one season.
If your pond is too big to stretch a net across, do what you can and take comfort in the fact that the larger the pond the less damage to the water chemistry will be done by any individual leaves that do get through. If your pond, like mine, is small enough to easily spread a net across, then by all means do so.
How long do you leave the net on? Some folks leave it on only until all the leaves in their yard have fallen and are raked. But my neighbors don't rake, and dry leaves that have blown like tumbleweeds from a half a mile away are still hitting the water and sticking like flies to flypaper as late as April. Still, I generally get "excited" about spring and take my pond netting off in March. The point is to reduce the amount of plant material that decays in the pond as much as you reasonably can, without diminishing your enjoyment.
It's also time to start thinking about how you will protect your fish from oxygen deprivation during the winter. In my part of the country, they say that goldfish will survive the worst winters in a 2-foot-deep pond as long as they have oxygen (for koi, they recommend 3' - check with your local pond supply for details about your area). Freezing solid into the ice doesn't hurt goldfish as much as you think it might. But a buildup of carbon dioxide and or a shortage of oxygen in the water can kill your fish even in a pond that only freezes a couple of inches deep and stays that way for a while.
- For the first three years I had fish in my pond, I kept a pond heater going in one corner. That kept a little circle of open water all winter long that allowed carbon dioxide to escape. When it was working, it worked even when there was so much snow on top of it that you couldn't see the little hole it was keeping open in the ice. Unfortunately, it also cost me about $100 a month to operate. The last year I used it, it failed mid-winter, when there was a snow drift over the pond, so I didn't know it had failed. I lost all my fish, including a couple that my kids thought of as pets and a few others that would be expensive to replace if I had a mind to.
- Several friends had recommended getting a little aquarium pump, some vinyl hose and an "airstone" or two. Drop the airstone in the deepest part of the pond, set a building or something over the pump to keep it from the weather, and you have protected your fish. This does force a certain amount of oxygen into the water, which is good for the fish, but the main thing it does is apply so much pressure under the "ice cap" that the carbon dioxide and other harmful gasses find their way out. Again, it will work when there is ice and even deep
 snow on top of the pond, but I recommend checking it every few days just to be on the safe side. If you can't see the bubbles for the ice, at least make certain it's still pumping air. These pumps use soft rubber or vinyl diaphrams that can give out in very cold weather. It's also worth mentioning that the $30 ones hold up a little better than the $10 ones. By the way, most of them pull something like 20 watts, as opposed to some of the heaters, which pulled several hundred watts. So running a little aquarium pump all winter doesn't take any more electricity than a couple of night lights. And if you have to replace it mid-winter, you're still money ahead.
- For more information about water features in general, see the Family Garden Trains article on Water Features and Garden Railroads.
If you have any good weather in October, make use of it. But if you get stuck indoors, it's time to finalize your Christmas list. Also if you buy (or have bought) any kits that you plan to assemble, this is a good time to clean up the flash, prime, and paint them (especially if you do your spray painting in an unheated area). If you don't know where to start, check out the article and buyers' guide links near the top of this page.
Finally, if you're thinking about any extensions or changes to your railroad, this is a good time to start drawing up plans and calculating budgets. Our article on Building a Garden Railroad on a Budget should give you some ideas about how to budget your next expansion.
From BigIndoorTrains.com and HalloweenTrains.com - If you like setting up indoor trains and towns for Halloween, you should be pleased to see a new Halloween-Themed building project that combines vintage tinplate style with Halloween-themed colors and signage - a fun craft project that will bring October 30 to any mantel, shelf, or indoor railroad.
To see the new Tinplate-Inspired Halloween storefront building project, click on the following link:
 Also, due to popular demand, we've reposted Paul's Spook Hill Chronicles, a family-friendly online Halloween novel. Imagine you were a widow with two children running from your late husband's gambling "buddies," only to find that the place you had taken refuge showed every sign of being haunted, or at least of being very strange.
To jump to the introduction, click on the following link:
 To visit the HalloweenTrains.com pages, click on the following link:
Or take a look at some great Christmas-themed trains and related projects:
This is a reminder that the upgraded AristoCraft 0-4-0, tender, and caboose combination is still available at a discount direct from the manufacturer. You will NOT be disappointed with this offering, even if you think you "know" the Aristo 0-4-0.
To jump right to Aristo's page about these, please click on any of the following links:
I know it sounds like another sales pitch, but when I don't post these reminders (even on the "wrong" newsletters) I wind up getting angry e-mails from disappointed readers later on. If you set up an indoor O scale or On30 railroad or seasonal village, you may find this helpful. You may know that Hawthorne Village, now part of Bradford Exhange, used to offer several heirloom quality On30 train collections built on Bachmann's On30 chassis (and given a lifetime mechanical guarantee from Bachmann). The paint jobs and detailing were based on art by people like Al Agnew, Norman Rockwell, and especially the late Thomas Kinkade. They also made special On30 trains for Coca Cola collectors and fans of the Rudolph television special. All of these sets are "limited editions," which means that when they are sold out they are gone, period.
What you may not know is that Hawthorne Village, stung by the recession, stopped ordering new On30 trains in 2009 and has since been "filling the gap" with trains they already had on order and new HO trains that do not look as good with holiday villages and are, frankly, lower in quality. Again, a few of the On30 sets may still be around a year or two from now, but once they are gone they are really gone for good. Collectors "in the know" are already making a run on certain sets, especially the Coke and Rudolph sets.
By the way, I am not saying you should buy these as a financial investment that you can resell at some time in the future for more money. Many Hawthorne Village train collections virtually never reappear on the secondary market once they've been purchased by a family, so there's no way to guess what they'd be worth if they did. All I'm saying is that if you have your heart set on a set that is still available today, don't assume it will be available by December 1.
To jump right to our Hawthorne Village Christmas Train pages, please click on any of the following links:
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 August, 2013, 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.
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Prepping a CMS Plastic House for Year-Round Service
Structure Buyer's Guide Update
Christmas Train Day, 2013
New Halloween Projects for Indoor Trains and Towns
Aristo 0-4-0 Redux
Collectible On30 Christmas Train Deadlines Approaching
