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Written by Paul D. Race for Family Garden Trains^TM and Garden Train Store^TM

An LGB-Centered DVD That Very Small Children Will Love Every so often I get asked to provide a link to someone's products. Note: The last time I tried to contact the creator of the video being reviewed on this page, I couldn't find him at all; nor could I find anyone selling his videos. So they may no longer be available. However, I'm leaving this link up in case you come across one and wonder what it is. Sorry for any disappointment. I learned a long time ago that "reciprocal links" aren't really reciprocal, but I will review and even link to a product if I am convinced that it provides value to our readers. Not long ago I was asked to provide a link to a particular DVD that is frequently being offered for sale on eBay. The product is sometimes listed as: "Backseat Railways - Two great G-Scale videos on one DVD." This includes the director's previous two DVDs glommed together onto one disk: G Scale Journey Riding Household Railways I asked Bill Spicer, the author/producer/director/distributor, if he wanted me to review the product, so he sent me one. I watched the first several minutes diligently, then fast-forwarded through the rest of the product to make certain I wasn't missing anything. Occasionally, when I saw something that looked like a real garden railway, I hit rewind and made certain I hadn't missed any real garden railroad content. Consequently, it's safe to say that this is not a DVD about garden railroading or garden railroads. In fact, there are only a few seconds of footage of actual garden railroads. Instead it is mostly a DVD of LGB trains running in different real-world environments, which apparently include Bill's living room. Bill has obviously spent many hours laying LGB trackage all over his house, through his back yard, and even at the beach. This results in many, many minutes of footage showing LGB trains running on track laid directly on carpet in the living room. Then in the hall. Then on the back deck. There is even footage of the train running on track laid directly in beach sand (along the Chesapeake Bay, I think). Several of the routes are more like roller-coasters than railroads, as the director tries to connect the segments by having the track dive off a deck rail into the yard, etc. The "plus" is that the miniature photography is excellent, the splices are professional, and the soundtrack is listenable and appropriate, (though not credited that I could see, though maybe I wasn't looking hard enough). But except for a few seconds on each program, there are actually no garden railways by most people's definition. Instead the theme of the disks seems to be something like: "Let's set up our LGB trains in the living room, tape them running from every angle." "Now let's set up our LGB trains on the back deck and tape them running from every angle." "Now let's set up our LGB trains right on the grass in the back yard and tape them running from every angle." A few days after I checked out the DVD, I noticed it listed on eBay. There was a lot of positive feedback (isn't there always)? I was a little surprised, since I was personally disappointed by the lack of garden railroading content. But after a scanning through the feedback, I realized that most of the positive feedback on ebay seems to come from people with very small children who don't care about whether the environment is appropriate - they just like to watch the trains running. "Excellent babysitter," "My 3-year-old is wearing it out", etc. In my contact back to Bill, I asked the director to attend the next Convention or even the next club open house and get the same quality footage of any real garden railroads - I'd recommend such a product to anybody of any age. As it is, this could be considered an inexpensive way to keep the grandkids quiet when the weather's too nasty to run your trains. If you buy this, I would advise getting the "two-in-one" version - it's only a few dollars more than the single version. For more information or to purchase one of these videos, check out http://spicerpro.com/catalog.html/ As for the review copy in my possession, I know a 1-year-old who will LOVE this disk. Stay tuned. We will have some GREAT announcements this year, as we're expanding in several directions due to new interest in various parts of the hobby. And if there's something we haven't dealt with that is important to you, please, contact us and we'll try to get it in the queue if it isn't already. Return to the Blog-Like Content Menu To read more, or to look at recommended Garden Railroading and Display Railroad products, you may click on the index pages below.