A reader writes:
I'm planning to put a small single winding loop of O guage Gargraves Stainless Steal track in my front upper garden terrace this year. If all goes well, I can foresee expanding with a few switches and a bridge to a lower reverse loop. I've read your articles on road beds and think I'll try the flex method using plastic decking "wood". I am still just planning, and am searching for O scale buildings. I had expected cast resin or concrete or something would be available, but I didn't find any yet. Any suggestions?
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Thanks for getting in touch. Realizing that indoor buildings aren't built as solid as the buildings they make for Large Scale garden railroading, you should know that the biggest enemy of outdoor plastic buildings is UV. That's why our articles on "Painting Plastic Structures" etc go into so much detail about priming and painting buildings that are supposedly UV-resistant. I've put TOY buildings on my RR, properly painted, that outlasted supposedly UV-resistant garden train buildings. So I wouldn't feel bad at all about carefully priming, painting, and assembling some plastic O-scale buildings, then bringing them in when you start to get snow in the fall.
I agree that concrete buildings would be nice, and I've even experimented with trying to make my own for my garden railroad, but I haven't had time to get anything worth publishing about yet.
Hope this helps. Best of luck with your project, please keep a photo-journal of your progress.
And let me know if you have any more questions - Paul