Family Garden Trains
Discussion Forums

Visit our Affiliated Pages:
Return to Family Garden Trains Home page
Garden Railroading Primer Articles: All about getting a Garden Railroad up and running well
Big Christmas Trains: Directory of Large Scale and O Scale trains with holiday themes
Return to Big Indoor Trains Home page
Building temporary and permanent railroads with big model trains
Best-loved railroad songs and the stories behind them.

It is currently Tue Dec 03, 2024 9:54 pm

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 1 post ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Wed Jan 27, 2021 1:07 pm 
Offline
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:13 am
Posts: 184
A reader writes:

Picked up my first issue of Garden Railways magazine about six years ago. Got hooked on the idea. I've purchased one engine and several rolling stock as well as a half dozen structure kits over those years. I have a spot picked for the railroad and a pretty good idea as to what I want to do. I just need to get started.

question: TRACK!!! Hear many stories about the difficulty with track power on a garden railroad. Several folks in the business advocate battery power as more reliable. If I go that route can I get away with a less expensive track, maybe aluminum? Also, your opinion on buying used track online. Thank you so much.

-----------------------------------------------------

Battery power may be best if you are going to be doing "walk-around" hands-on operation on a very large railroad. That said, you can do remote control DCC and use track power OR battery and remote control.

Also, if you're going to have several people operating trains over the RR at the same time, some kind of Remote control is great.

If you're going to have less than, say, 250' of track, and you don't mind running jumper wires, and you're more interested in watching the trains run (or setting them to run so OTHER people can watch them, say, on open RRs), track power is probably better.

Track power is no problem at all for most people, as long as the track is reachable without getting on your hands and knees or your not under trees that generate a lot of sap (you have to watch that even with battery power, though). Also, if you run rolling stock with plastic wheels on really hot days, the wheel material can actually start depositing on the track. That's a bad thing, and it's one reason some folks complain about track power.

My old railroad was surrounded by trees and heavily planted, so I had to clear the track of pine needles, sap, raccoon poop, and other things pretty much every time I wanted to run my trains. While I was at it, I would wipe the top and inside edge of the rails with a fine grain sanding sponge. It never added more than 5% to the amount of time I had to spend clearing the track anyway.

Aluminum track is cheaper, and if you're going to build a very large railroad, aluminum track and battery/remote may be the way to go. I do a lot of open RRs where the trains just have to run and run all day long, and my RR isn't all that big, so track power works better for me. Also, I never run trains with plastic wheels, except in cold weather.

Hope this makes sense.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 1 post ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron


Click to see sturdy Lionel(r) trains that are perfect for your Christmas tree.


Visit our affiliated sites:
- Trains and Hobbies -
Return to Big Indoor Trains Home page
Return to Family Garden Trains Home page
Big Indoor Trains Primer Articles: All about setting up and displaying indoor display trains and towns. Garden Railroading Primer Articles: All about getting a Garden Railroad up and running well
On30 and O Gauge trains to go with indoor display villages and railroads
Big Christmas Trains: Directory of Large Scale and O Scale trains with holiday themes
Visit Lionel Trains. Free building projects for your vintage railroad or Christmas village. Click to see Thomas Kinkaded-inspired Holiday Trains and Villages. Big Christmas Train Primer: Choosing and using model trains with holiday themes Visit Howard Lamey's glitterhouse gallery, with free project plans, graphics, and instructions. Click to see HO scale trains with your favorite team's colors.
- Family Activities and Crafts -
Click to see reviews of our favorite family-friendly Christmas movies. Free, Family-Friendly Christmas Stories Decorate your tree the old-fashioned way with these kid-friendly projects. Free plans and instructions for starting a hobby building vintage-style cardboard Christmas houses. Click to find free, family-friendly Christmas poems and - in some cases - their stories. Traditional Home-Made Ornaments
- Christmas Memories and Collectibles -
Visit the FamilyChristmasOnline site. Visit Howard Lamey's glitterhouse gallery, with free project plans, graphics, and instructions. Visit Papa Ted Althof's extensive history and collection of putz houses, the largest and most complete such resource on the Internet.. Click to return to the Old Christmas Tree Lights Table of Contents Page Craft and collectibles blog with local news of Croton NY.
Click to visit Fred's Noel-Kat store.
- Music -
Carols of many countries, including music, lyrics, and the story behind the songs Wax recordings from the early 1900s, mostly collected by George Nelson.  Download them all for a 'period' album.
Best-loved railroad songs and the stories behind them.
Heartland-inspired music, history, and acoustic instrument tips. Own a guitar, banjo, or mandolin?  Want to play an instrument?  Tips to save you money and time, and keep your instrument playable. Own a guitar, banjo, or mandolin?  Want to play an instrument?  Tips to save you money and time, and keep your instrument playable.



Click to trains that commemorate your team!

Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group