Novice interested in setting up a train set in my backyard- HELP

[SammyC]

Hi, I've never been involved in the train world but I do want to put a train set in my backyard that is good for all year weather and I am interested in finding out who I can meet with that can guide me and eventually set this up for me since it looks like it will be a custom job. I'm fascinated with trains but never had the time to sit down and get to understand it. Now I do. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Sammy

[the Bach-man]

Dear Sammy,
Go on line and order a copy of Garden Trains Annual.  This will give you many ideas. Also try to find
a club in your neck of the woods.  Members are generally happy to offer tours of their railroads.
In what general area of the country do you live?
You're in for a great time!
Have fun!
the Bach-man

[jward]

There is also a magazine called Garden Railways that caters to outdoor large scale trains. I often see it in Barnes & Nobles. This should be able to point you in the right direction.

[the Bach-man]

Dear Al,
Sadly, Kalmbach has discontinued Garden Railways.
They do have an abbreviated version on trains.com
It's worth a look!
the Bach-man

[trainman203]

I've tried to do an HO scale model railroad in an outdoor air setting for four years now.  The house is raised one story up, but open underneath because we're in a flood prone area along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. So the layout is completely exposed to the outside environment, but out of the rain.

The layout is quite small, two 2x8's meeting in an L-shape.

In our area, at least, it's a challenge to have a layout in the outside air. The whole idea of this layout was to use up extra track I had left over from a larger layout at our other house. It's a mix of Bachmann EZ track And Atlas snap track.  And I used a Bachmann Terminal rerailer connect my power source to the layout.

The  outside air is distinctly the layout's enemy here.  I found that I had to surgically scrub the track clean every day, every day, every day to operate at all  Plus, not many people realize that the inside surfaces of rail joiners oxidize too. Also, I'd say that 3/4 of mine have failed over time electrically, requiring soldering them together to maintain electrical contact. 

The Gulf Coast is a region of temperature extremes. For almost all of the summer, it's comfortable enough to be down there on the layout only between about 6 AM and 10 AM, after that, it's just too hot.  Winter is a lot better, but there are still days too cold to go down there.

Extreme temperature changes have caused the rail to constantly expand and contract, further loosening the rail joiners to failure. This summer we had at least two weeks of days over 100°F. But the final blow actually happened just last week when a short circuit developed somewhere up in the layout.  Nothing could be found across the track to cause it.  So I can only surmise one possible hidden internal cause, thermal expansion having caused two opposite polarity rails to push together at a switch frog.  Somehow I managed to isolate the problem to one half of the layout, keeping the other half still functional.  It's ridiculous that this happened right after I ballasted the track on that end of the layout.  Track sections can't really be replaced individually practically. So I'll have to tear it all up and do something

My experience with all of this has been quite wearying and I don't know how much longer I'm going to keep it up. We don't have any room in the house itself here for a Railroad, but apparently our particular climate down here is not amenable to an outside one.  So I have basically retreated into the house and build kits now instead of running a layout.

None of this means yours won't work well, of course, but my advice to you would be to use EZ track or something similar that securely snaps together and has a plastic road bed.

[jward]

Regarding the problems Trainman has encountered: the solution is to use battery powered locomotives that do not need electrical contact through the rails. This is also known as DeadRail. I don't have experience in the large scale trains I'm assuming you'd want to use for an outdoor railroad, but I know others have used DeadRail successfully in this application. You can probably buy locomotives already set up to run this way, through a hand held controller similar to those used for RC cars, boats and planes.

[trainman203]

Dead rail is the future of Model Railroading. We are just waiting for technology to create small enough power sources that can fit inside our little trains yet, have enough juice to run a long time, and recharge quickly. You'd think that since we were able to land on Mars, we would have that by now. But we don't.

[SammyC]

I live by the Jersey Shore in West Long Branch. Can you direct me to a group in my area, if you know any? Thanks

[trainman203]

Do an Internet search for Model Railroad clubs in your area. Or hobby shops that handle Model Railroad equipment.  I promise you that you will find people. You live in a northern urban area that will have a lot of Model Railroaders.  It's a lot different down south here in a sparsely settled area.