December, 2019 Update from Family Garden Trains^TM

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Update for December, 2019

True to form, this started out as the November newsletter, but I kept having trouble getting a couple of the articles ready. Plus November was a very busy month for us, including our annual Christmas-themed open railroad, an event that we work toward one way or the other for months.

Our outdoor railroading season ends much later than most folks', because of the open railroad. And that event also hosts more kid-oriented features than most folks' railroads most of the time. But we like the idea of getting kids interested in trains early, and this is one of the best ways we know how. We hope you don't mind us including some articles on things like toy trains and castles that you wouldn't ordinarily expect to see in a "serious" garden railroad publication.

Instead of our annual "Garden Railroading in the Winter" section, this newsletter includes an article about what we've done to prepare our own railroad for the cold months. Since this is our new railroad's first winter with an in-ground pond, we tried a new approach to keeping the fish alive over the winter. I hope the article gives you some ideas for your own railroad as well.

No matter how - or if - you celebrate the holidays, I hope you have plenty of time to spend with your family in the coming days, and that the new year brings you many blessings!

In This Issue

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

• Preparing for Christmas Train Day 2019 - Last-minute preparations for our annual Christmas-themed open railroad.

• Christmas Train Day - A report on our November, 2019 Christmas Train Day.

• Lionel's "G Gauge" Toy Trains (Updated) -

• Trashbashing Fisher Price Castles - Repurposing battered toy castles to give our Hogwarts Express an appropriate setting for our open railway.

• Winter Preparation, 2019 - Last-minute preparations for cold weather on the NEW New Boston and Donnels Creek RR, including some tips you may find helpful.

• Last-Minute Train Maintenance - If your trains don't run like they should when you get them out.

• NGRC at Nashville, 2020 - The National Garden Railway Convention is coming.

Preparing for Christmas Train Day 2019 - Wrapping up construction projects for 2019 and getting ready for our annual Christmas-themed open railroad. Includes new lighting and other features, providing a temporary home for a Hogwarts Express train, weather issues, and more.

Click on the following link to see our progress of mid-November, 2019.

https://familygardentrains.com/newbost/19_11_01_prep_for_train_day/19_11_01_prep_for_train_day.htm

Christmas Train Day, 2019 - Three years after starting a garden railroad in our new home, we host our eleventh Christmas-themed open railroad, giving many families a jump start on Christmas celebrations and sharing the experience of running trains with lots of kids.

Click on the following link to see a brief record of our busiest weekend in November, 2019.

• https://familygardentrains.com/newbost/19_11_16_train_day_2019/19_11_16_train_day.htm

Lionel's "G Gauge" Toy Tains (Updated) - I first published a review of these trains in 2010, with the idea that they'd help folks on a shoe-string set up a backyard railroad. But in 2019, I revisited this article after experimenting with the hard-to-find Hogwarts Express from that era. Though it's no model, really, it's better than you'd expect. Plus the fact that I've let a host of children run the Polar Express I reviewed on seven subsequent open railroads makes me think that they're still worth looking into for that purpose if nothing else.

Click on the link below to see the article

http://familygardentrains.com/primer/shoe_string/lionel_toy_train/lionel_toy_g_trains.htm

Trashbashing Fisher Price Castles - When we considered using a discontinued G gauge Hogwarts Express train for our annual Christmas-themed open railroad, we also wondered how to make that train look at home without spending hundreds of dollars or hundreds of hours, or both, trying to build a representation of Hogwarts Castle. We settled for repurposing some battered old toy castles in a way that would let us use them for other purposes. But they served this purpose just fine, I think.

Click on the following link for more information.

https://halloweentrains.com/primer/hogwarts/castles/trashbashing_castles.htm>

Winter Preparation, 2019 - After the big open railroad event, we try to prepare the railroad for the cold months, including populating the railroad with North States bird feeders so it doesn't look empty, adding an air pump and bubblers to the pond, and more.

Click on the following link to see our status as of early December, 2019. https://familygardentrains.com/newbost/19_11_24_winter_prep/19_11_24_winter_prep.htm>

Last-Minute Train Maintenance

When you get your trains out, you may notice them running raggedly or not at all.

Running Raggedly - Ragged running is the easiest to fix. The track and the wheels of your locomotive have probably gotten gunky. If you have brass track, it may have corroded slightly.

To clean steel or nickel-silver track, locate the smoke fluid bottle that came with your train. Open a window or - if you haven't laid your track yet, take it to the garage AWAY from your furnace and water heater or any other device with flame. The point is to get lots of ventilation.

Let a little of the fluid flow into a clean rag and wipe off the track. If you've used up or lost your smoke fluid, or you didn't get any with your train, a low grade lantern fuel is almost exactly the same thing (the kind they sell to work in ornamental "kerosene lanterns). Again, ventilation is key

This usually works for brass track, but you may have slight corrosion. In that case, a VERY FINE grade sanding sponge will clean it up in a hurry. Don't get carried away or use coarse sandpaper - you'll just form grooves that make it that much easier for gunk to collect on the track.

Now for your locomotives. If you can safely hold them upside down (say between your legs or braced between and on other soft surfaces) bring your power supply and wires over to where you're going to work. Again, in most cases, smoke fluid on a rag will do what you need. I confess, for my outdoor trains, I usually use a VERY FINE grade sanding sponge.

Turn the power supply on, being sure the loose ends of the wire aren't touching each other. Then locate any wheel set that is conducting electricity back to the motor. Hold one wire against the inside of one wheel and the other wire against the inside of the opposite wheel and turn the power supply on low. As the drive wheels turn, you can simply hold your rag or sanding sponge against them. Cleaning the wheels that don't turn on their own just requires you to manually turn one wheel while you clean the opposite wheel.

By the way, most track gunk comes from the plastic wheels of your freight cars wearing down as they travel around the track. On some garden railroads, the track gets hot enough to melt plastic wheels a little at a time as they go around the track, so that adds to the problem. That's why I try to run only metal-wheeled cars most of the time, and I never run plastic-wheeled cars on really hot days.

The wheels on my old American Flyer freight cars would gunk up so much that they would stop being round and I would have to clean them as well. I can't believe my mother let me stink up that end of the house with what is essentially low-grade kerosene several times a year.

The alternative to wheel cleaning and track cleaning is to run your trains like a bat out of $%^&* like most tinplate train displays of the 40's, 50's, and 60s did. But that's not exactly a long-term solution.

Trains Won't Run, Period - Check to make certain power is getting to the track and the trains' wheels aren't so gunked up that they can't get any juice. Try applying power directly to the pickup wheels if you can't get the train to respond otherwise. If your train is simply not working period, you may still have to find a replacement.

Smooth, But Slow or Noisy - It's likely your trains need lubricated. That's a bigger topic than I can address here, but it will likely include buying at least two kinds of lubricant - a lighter one for the wheel bearings and a heavier one for the gears. The set here will give you that and more.

If You're Running Out of Time - Again, if you find you need to replace your trains, or if you think you want to get a new Large Scale train before the tree goes up, you should know that Bachmann seems to have cut way back on their entry-level starter sets, though Piko and LGB starter sets are still available.

To see our best currently-available recommendations for Large Scale (G gauge) trains, click the following link:

http://garden-train-store.com/begin/ls_starters.htm

I will warn you though, these have been running out of stock faster than I can keep my pages updated. If you click on a link and the train shows as unavailable, scroll down to see Amazon's related suggestions. Just be certain it says G Scale - Amazon often adds O gauge trains to G scale pages.

Keeping Busy This Winter - If you haven't started your railroad yet, take a look at our planning articles here:

https://familygardentrains.com/primer/planning/planning_index.htm

And glance through our construction articles here:

https://familygardentrains.com/primer/construction/construction_index.htm

If your railroad needs more buildings, take a look at our "Painting Plastic Structures" article to see how to keep your buildings sturdy and attractive for years.

https://familygardentrains.com/primer/structures/painting/structure_painting.htm

If you are looking for building kits to try out, check out the Amazon link for Piko structures.

https://amzn.to/34OaBEt

NGRC at Nashville in 2020 - One final note: The National Garden Railway Convention will be in Nashville this year, May 31 through June 6. At the moment, I'm planning on giving at least one clinic, if not more. this is just a warning, in case you needed an excuse to stay away. There are some fantastic railroads on the area, though, so the tours alone will be worth the price of admission.

https://ngrc2020.com/

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 October, 2019, click on the following link:

https://familygardentrains.com/fgt_newsletter/19_10_newsletter_gr.htm

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