On30 garden railroad

[The train kid]

I've heard before of g scale garden railroads and o gauge I would like to know if it is possible to run an on30 outdoor railroad as I don't really have room in my house

[Anubis]

I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible.

It is true, that most garden layouts are especially reserved for the larger scales, but there would be no reason that running "HO-gauged" track outside wouldn't be OK.

You would have to take the obvious things like climate, protection from garden litter, leaves and etc., into consideration, as well as providing protection from the elements for the locomotives and rolling stock. If you have a small garden shed that you can run the track into, that should suffice for storage when not running the trains.

One plus with outdoor layouts is that in most cases, you would not have to be concerned with sharp radii on your curves, as you can have them as broad as you wish.

The choice of track may be of concern. The old-schoolers from the 1950s and 60s used to employ brass-railed track, to offset the problems of rust, but today's nickle-silver may be all right....but whatever track you choose, it will still have to be dried and cleaned very regularly. More so than indoor layout trackage.

Of course, if you opt to go for the 'dead-rail' alternative, track cleaning is not so much of an issue......but you still have to keep the leaves, twigs, birds, dogs and cats away!

I have only had a small amount of experience with outdoor layouts, and that was in O scale, and many decades back.

Good luck!

[The train kid]

I planned on using Atlas track I've had a catalog while back when I was thinking about doing an HO scale garden railroad and it said that HO tracks could be indoor or outdoor. Thank you for your input it helped a lot

[Ken Clark]

    The Continental Modeller had a 10 page article in the Feb 2012 issue on an HO outdoor layout by Peter Esgate. He operated 100+ car freights and 20+ passenger car trains. The layout was in England. At the time it had been running for 8-9 years in the climate there.

   As far as track, as I understand PECO track is the only UV resistant brand, not aware
ATLAS is?, might pay to test a section out of doors. Peter used all PECO for his layout.

   Peter's layout was called "Watsatch Junction", may show up on google etc.

     Back issue may be available from PECO publications in England.


   Ken Clark
     GWN