December, 2018 Update from Family Garden Trains™
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Update for December, 2018
Last month we reported that we would be holding a "Christmas Train Day" open railroad, which was an annual event before we moved. We hold it in mid-November, because after that the weather can get much worse.
 By now a "good time was had by all," and we report on that event below.
Because Christmas hasn't come yet, we still have the lights and garland up, but we have taken in our scale buildings to protect them from bad weather. In their place, we've put North States bird feeders, with gravel in the little seed trays to help hold them down during high winds. Turns out, such provisions are necessary here - I've been finding buildings, figures, and accessories in the yard ever since I started putting them out this spring.
The little Lemax grouping of children and snowman might get blown over, but at least it won't get blown across the yard like several of my plastic figures have (one was never recovered). Next year, I'll make a point of sticking them down better.
In the meantime, my railroad is just about as ready for winter as it's likely to get. But there are still short trains on the track in the shed, so I can still run them on short notice - something that was never possible on our previous railroad.
In This Issue
The following content is linked to or included in this newsletter:
We started having Christmas-themed "open railroads" in 2007, but we had to stop after 2015 because we moved and didn't really have a railroad to show. Last month we reintroduced the tradition, albeit with some changes based on the new railroad, back yard, and porches. As before, we had Christmas-themed trains running, Christmas lights and music, popcorn and other treats, plus Large-Scale versions of Thomas and his friends, and several trains for the kiddies to run.
As always, a good time was had by all, despite very cold temperatures.
To see our preparations and our report, please click on the following link:
In our last newsletter, we posted links to all of the log-type articles we wrote as we were building our 19th-century-country-station-inspired train shed. The logs included all the plans and decisions we made and later changed, and the mistakes we had to compensate for as we went on. Many of our readers appreciate the "if I can do it, you can do it" tone of such articles.
However, wading through such details doesn't get some people to the "punchline" fast enough. For folks who just wanted an overview, we have put together a 4-page PDF article that summarizes the process and leaves out all the things I considered or tried that didn't work out. :-)
Click the following link to read the PDF. If you have a PC, you can right-click to download it:
About Garden Railways' Current Issue - Nancy Norris, the"horticultural" editor for Garden Railways magazine, built her train shed in the shape of a caboose. The December, 2018 GR issue includes Nancy's article about several garden railroaders who had the same idea. Nancy saw my project articles several months ago. She was very encouraging and told me what she was working on. So I was pleased to see what she had done. "Great minds," except that she modeled a caboose and I modeled a station. Here's hoping you get some ideas from me, Nancy, or from her fellow contributors.
 Garden Railways' Back-Issue DVD - Speaking of Garden Railways magazine, here's a great Christmas gift for the garden railroader in your family - the first three decades of the magazine on DVD ROM. The DVD contains 192 complete issues of Garden Railways from 1984-2015, plus 9 bonus issues of its predecessor, the Sidestreet Banner newsletter. In addition, you'll have access to every full-size drawing ever published! This includes blueprints for cars and structures of all kinds.
Yes, some of the articles, like product reviews of things that haven't been made in 20 years, may seem dated. But many of the articles in this collection were compiled later into books you could buy separately - books that are, sadly, now out of print. So you could consider this an entire library in one package. P.S. I don't make a cent off this - I just think that it's a much better value than, say, buying another freight car you don't have room for on the tracks now.
To check out this package, click the following link:
Test Your Trains Early
 Here's a tip I try to share every year at this time: If you only have one train, and you're going to set it up for Christmas, test it now. Every year, starting in early December, I get deluged with e-mails from anxious, upset folks whose train set doesn't work when they set it around the tree. Trust me, the train manufacturers' repair departments are already working overtime by Thanksgiving, so sending your train off and getting it back in time for Christmas is "off the table."
Nobody with a cherished old heirloom wants to hear that the only way they'll have a train around the tree by this year's Christmas is to buy a new one, but that happens.
Because I write articles and do clinics, etc., I have backups, and backups for my backups, but even I get caught up unexpectedly, when a specific train I was counting on suddenly decides not to behave. Again, it is often reparable, but not in time to use as I had planned.
Over the years, I have also operated a Christmas-themed web page called FamilyChristmasOnline.com. When folks wondered why a train guy had so much to say about Christmas and vice versa, I published an article that explains why Christmas and trains seem to go so well together.
In fact it just seems natural, somehow to see a train station decorated for Christmas (like my backyard structure in the title photo), or to see a train of some sort running under the Christmas tree (like the old-timey photo just above this section).
If you want to know why that is, click the following link to go to the article:
Don't Wait Too Long to Buy Trains for Christmas (or Even Next Summer)
Most of the folks reading this newsletter already have trains. That's great. But if you're planning to add a new train to put around the tree this year, or to give as a gift, the deadlines are coming up pretty quickly. In addition, vendor stocks on several popular brands are already surprisingly low.
Bachmann, in particular, seems to be rethinking their commitment to Garden Trains. As far as I know, the company lost one leader who was committed to high-end 1:20.3 models. But it's been a while since Bachmann has introduced any new starter sets in their budget "Big Hauler" and "Li'l Big Hauler" lines. Worse yet, most of their existing sets have disappeared from the shelves.
When AristoCraft went out of business - in part because people couldn't see the value of paying several hundred dollars for Aristo's state-of-the-art scale models - hobbyists all over suddenly realized that they had put off buying that special locomotive too long. Now many of AristoCraft's high-end pieces on the second-hand market are selling for twice what they did when AristoCraft was in business. Other vendors like USA Trains and MTH automatically bumped up their own prices once AristoCraft was no longer giving them competition.
The same kind of price jumps - even for used gear - are already happening to some of Bachmann's higher-end models.
Not to mention that new tariffs on Chinese-manufactured goods could price any new Bachmann or Lionel trains out of the market anyway.
The good news is that European-made American-style starter-sets from LGB and PIKO are still coming in, and Hartland Locomotive Works trains are still being made in the USA. So you shouldn't have to worry about garden railroading going away altogther.
But the moral is, if you have your eye on some specific train, please order it soon to avoid disappointment. The following lists of trains I recommend that are currently available on Amazon are provided for your convenience. If you can find them from a local hobby shop, that's even better.
If you click on the Amazon link for a specific train and it is low or out of stock, you can sometimes see similar trains in the "Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed" section. Just be certain you select a train comparable to the one you were searching for.
 Large Scale Trains in Railroad Names -
To see the best currently-available recommendations, click the following link:
 Large Scale Trains in Christmas Colors - These are perfect for big displays in bank lobbies, etc. And they are "jaw-dropping" around the tree.
To see the Large Scale trains that are decorated for Christmas, click the following link:
 Large Scale Trains for Kids - There are several trains that work as well under the tree or on the bedroom floor as they work outside.
To see Large Scale trains that are designed to be kid-friendly, click the following link:
 O Gauge Trains in Christmas Colors - Last year, Lionel offered more trains decorated for Christmas than they have ever offered at one time. This year not so much. However, at the time of this posting, Amazon is offering Lionel's best O gauge Polar Express set at a very nice discount.
Click the following link to see Lionel's Christmas-Themed O gauge offerings:
 O Gauge Trains in Railroad Names - If you're thinking about a Lionel train you'd like to run year-round, click the following link to see the Lionel trains that are painted for PRR, NYC, UP, GWR, and other "real-world" railroads:
Scrounge Modeling Supplies this Season
This is just a reminder to be on the lookout for materials you can use in your railroad.
 Free Project Wire - Bad Christmas tree lighting strands are often a good source of project wiring - the sort of thing you can use to wire lighting in your buildings, etc. In some strands, there is a single wire that runs half the length of the strand. (Some have no long pieces, I admit.) After finding out that a roll of similar wire was going to cost me $8-10 at the hardware store, I've used a bunch of this stuff to light buildings in the past. I plan to use it to light buildings in the future as well. Here's an article on the subject:
Free Window Material - Any packaging that includes clear "PETE" plastic can be a good source of window material. This is the stuff that has a "1" in the recycle logo. It appears in both product packaging and food packaging. I used to use Lucite/Plexiglass pieces for the windows of my buildings, but in many cases this does just as well, and is a lot easier to work with.
 Free Corrugated Metal - And you might consider salvaging those big rectangular aluminum pans they use for banquets and the like.
The flat bottoms offer a great source of corrugated metal for buildings. It's easily rolled with a Fiskars paper crimper.
There's an article about that here:
For folks who actually get winter, this is a good time to finish up winter stuff and start planning for spring. You could
- Catch up on train maintenance activities, such as cleaning your trains wheels:
- Inventory and repair your buildings while you have them inside.
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 Put backgrounds on your storage shelves or inside shelf railroad to provide a little better appearance. If you want to add a business district, you can easily download some storefront photos from our Building Front Photos page.
Click on the following link to see what we mean:
 Build a building flat for your indoor railroad. - As an example, our affiliate site, Big Indoor Trains has a simple project based on using a downloadable log cabin photo to make a 3/8"-deep building that really looks 3D from the front. Click the following link:
- Consider reading our planning guides one more time:
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 November, 2018, 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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Christmas Train Day Report: Nov. 10, 2018
Train Shed Story - the Short Version
What Do Trains Have to Do With Christmas?
