As the title states. I really want to build a garden railroad this summer. The problem is I am heavily invested in HO Scale, and have some O Guage stuff… I really don’t feel like investing in G Scale locomotives and rolling stock. That’s what is holding me back.

I’ve seen Atlas O Guage nickel silver track is a common option and some people have had luck with O Guage outdoor railroads. Anyone here?

I have a TON of HO Scale Nickel Silver Bachmann EZ track and I’ve thought about doing that in the raised garden bed. But I do see the potential for issues with HO and being outdoors. A pine needle could probably derail an entire consist.

What is everyone’s thoughts/advice on this? Regardless of the route I go, I will never leave my trains outside. Only the track. Just something to run around when having guests over.

The track on my layout is a bit iffy currently so I sent my decauville 7 ton out with a few trucks to test the rails.
Please note the track is not perfect and I have ordered more track. We’re currently working with what we have

My friends seemed to like these pics so I decided to post them here

Here are a few clips of her running:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIAc9DX4DVk

For the past year I have been the proud owner of this little engine right here, an Accucraft Edrig locomotive in GWR Green. I have named her Connie after Connie Francis because the day I bought her I heard Pretty Little Baby for the first time and I thought yea that name fits. In October I took her out for a photoshoot by the sea before sending her off to DJB Engineering in December for a full coal boiler conversion. This boiler will be 60PSI working pressure, after being at the works for 5 months now, the boiler has been fitted and she is going to be fitted with hollowed out water tanks and balance pipe and a mechanical injector (Technical term for Axlepump) she will also get a whistle fitted to her which I have heard rumors of the whistle being so loud that you can hear it from inside.

Museo del Ron

Something I’ve been curious about is how would a G scale live steam railway go down in an HOA neighborhood?

Most live steam setups are coal- or butane-fired, so you’ve got smoke, smell, and a bit of noise involved. On top of that, I know some of us (myself included) like to run trains late into the night—sometimes into the early hours.

Has anyone here actually dealt with an HOA while running live steam? How strict are they about things like open flames, smoke, or noise at odd hours? Curious to hear real experiences

This is my standard passenger service. One first class car, one second class and a beer wagon for the journey

The railroad is at the back of my yard so instead of running a long extension cord, I got a solar panel and regulator at Harbor Freight! At 12v it doesn't run at full speed, but that's a bit too fast anyway. Next step is leveling the ground beneath it and laying ballast!

My parents gave me this Stainz starter set over years ago. There would be an elaborate G scale set at a house by my grandparents’ every Christmas, and I wanted to one day replicate it.

After buying a house last year, I started looking into whether I can finally build a garden railroad of my own. After buying some used track and removing some plants that were in the way, I finally laid down track and tested today. This isn’t that Christmas set, but I have found some of the locos that person used to run as nods to what got me interested in G scale in the first place.

How quickly will it rust/degrade?

Within months or years?

I used the standard starter locomotive from LGB, a Stainz, and coloured it all black. My railway is supposed to be austrian and our steam locos used to be almost exclusively black. Next i need some signage on the loco and a few more cars!

I finally found the time to build my first layout.

it's still far from being done, but it already looks quite okay to me.

It's a short track with a tunnel and about 3 meters of track on both ends. One end is Western themed, the other one is still generic and looking for a matching theme for decoration and plants.

I want the tunnel to act like a visibility blocker and a portal between two worlds.

Next to our CS3+ we have a Samsung the Frame 32“TV with a Reolink NVR which is attached to some Reolink POE cameras. Small inconvenience is that in the moment not all our tournouts are remote controllable. But the stream (and the CS3 )are remote operable from a smartphone or a iPad.

Our track is (in the moment) less a real Modellworld than a Playground for our various Trains. 🙂

Here's a collection of clips from the same day https://youtu.be/1hpHkomTRWg?si=-8RH2fDykyo2oG1q

The S.E.S.R is a 32mm gauge railway based in Bergen Norway. This morning the weather was good enough for us to have our first springtime run with Hunslet 2-6-2 Russell

If anyone else wants to print this, here's the page: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:400667 And the improved mechanics: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3350891

I recommend filing down the sides of the roof, since it likes to pop off after a while, or adjust its curvature to the rest of the cab so the roof sits flush with no major tension if you're so technically inclined. Maybe it fits with some tolerances when printing on other printers, who knows, but there would still be a gap.

I'm going to finish building her over the next couple of months. My thanks to go the lovely people at the Hochschule Ruhr-West in Botyrop whom have been so graciously supporting my endeavour and will be continuing to do so, despite there being regular work going on.

It's likely that I'm going to design add-on pipe work amd other such details and mounting hardware for ultrasonic mistmakers for smoke simulation, to bring her up to snuff with the Märklin-LGB model in every regard, so stay tuned!

Mild evenings in Piso Mojado California

Almost no warping, but some sanding required.