How many on this forum have garden railroads and run G gauge trains?

I don't have any plastic buildings outside. I do have a couple of plastic bird houses that sit on the ground. They have held up. They aren't that old yet.

The Aristo ties are easy to replace. I wouldn't bother screwing the ties to the rails like the stock ones. I have used Aristo, LGB, and mainly Train-Li pro concrete colored ties. You can paint them I was told, to help them last longer. I sprayed some and the paint didn't hold up too well as I blasted it by accident with my power washer trying to clean up the winter scum.

If the wood is clean for glue, I'd recommend Titebond ll or lll. For new  work, I like 2 the best for all around performance. In the higher moisture, lll is supposed to be better. If there's any problem areas you could use Liquid Nails or similar, as a filler and glue. Takes a day or two to fully dry. After that it's rock solid.

Paint Brand is subjective. Everyone seems to have their own favorite. I'd treat it like painting your house. It sees everything a regular house sees.

You can see my RR all over this forum if you look. I won't clog up any more here.

Have had Aristo stainless steel track outside for the last 16 years in Chicago style weather. No issues yet.

Plastic building are another story. Some have disintegrated or come apart (Piko , Aristo). Installed LED lights in all.

Run only MTH DCS Engines outside on AC Z-4000 transformer. Diesels are great. Steamers have issues with the sliding power contacts and the way they are mounted. Easily snap off if track has any irregularities. Diesels are more forgiving.

Will post some photos when the weather gets better.

Have a garden railroad for about fifteen years other than rebalasting track every year no problems. I bring my buildings and trains inside after running them.Engineer-Joe whenever viewing your amazing videos I never think of them as clogging up the forum 

Here's a link to our garden railroad which is located within the Train Mountain grounds.  The structures stay out year round, rain, snow, deer!  Each building gets an annual inspection.  Plastic ones might get a wash job, wood ones get maintenance annually or as required.  They seem to last about 5 years in our climate.  The tunnel portals and trestles have lasted way longer than expected.  Russ

http://trainmtn.org/tmrr/pages/gville.shtml

I have a 30ish x 10ft. garden railroad: Aristocraft, LGB, and Bachmann track thats has been outside for 8 years now. Its only exposed to partial sun in the mid-morning and I haven't noticed any disintegration of the ties.

I built three out of my four structures myself; the odd one out being and Aristocraft station. After leaving the Aristo station out for a year and noticing the discoloration from the sun, I decided to keep that inside when not running trains. The other three buildings I have only ever taken out when running trains. I have always been cautious with them since I put a lot of time into building them myself. 

Exterior latex paint should be sufficient in protecting your buildings from the weather. As Engineer-Joe mentioned, Titebond III glue should be able to re-glue details on; I would maybe take some fine sandpaper to the areas you plan to glue in order to give the glue a better surface to stick to. Applying an exterior Urethane spray will also help protect those detail pieces. 

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ti...-Glue-1414/100522343

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Va...ray-340283/305667360

 Pictured is the east end of my railroad. The freight depot and PRR N5c Caboose are scratch built.

There is something special about operating among real rocks, trees and flowers. These are from last year just started to run this year after fixing the track 

I had a small loop at my last house. I need to get some track for the new place.

Had done a small one some years back.

But due to a miscalculation when removing a tree my trestle got crushed, other issues have prevented a rebuild. Hopefully will get done.

My club has a garden railroad with both G and O gauge trains.  The layout is called the G&O.  Here is a link to a post about it on this forum.  NH Joe

http://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t.../the-gandamp-o-story

Don

I also have a small Garden layout. I have a lot of buildings both plastic and wood. Tried many glues because of your problem with plastic . This is the best two I have come up with.  I really don't know any other and even these cause issues with the very small parts not staying on.

I probably have a dozen different glues and these are serving me fairly well. I think this winter I will remove all my plastic buildings from outside.

As far as the track I went LGB Brass completely and have no issues. But my layout is only about 4 years old now.

 I agree with Joe on paint. It's kind of an experiment. Probably a lot of different opinions.

There is exterior spray paint for plastic that the home stores and others sell.

Good luck.

Larry

Finally did get a G scale loop set up outside.

I must admit that I do not have a garden railroad at the present time, although I do have all the trains (mostly LGB) and all the track, switches, and accessories that I need for one. Once we get a portion of our back yard fenced in--a future project--I do hope to have a small garden railroad that can share space with a playground area for the grandchildren and some space for the dogs to get some exercise.

I wrote a book on garden railroading way back in 1990 or so,and it sold very well, but is woefully out of date now in this age of battery powered/radio control for garden trains, and that is what I plan to use in the future. I also hope/plan to do an updated edition of the book at some future date.

Garden railroading is a great segment of the hobby, and in addition to just being outdoors, I also enjoy the challenges and opportunities an outdoor operations presents. I no longer have my live steam locomotives, but once I get a garden pike up an running, I likely will add one or two live-steamers to the roster as long as they are made in Great Britain or Europe, and not in China. With few exceptions, I am pretty much done with China-made anything at this point.

I love that the people on this forum are happy to share and help others, no matter the gauge.  This is my backyard layout in Las Vegas (yes it's hot already).  Double track mainline now with 8 bridges and over 30ft of trestle.  Trackpower with RC.

This is my military train with WW2 planes, tanks and vehicles.

Chris S.

Chris, I like the trains and layout. I love the grass!

I need that!

I do, its elevated now for ease of upkeep as I get close to the big "50".   Running LGB/Kalamazoo/Bachmann with onboard batter power and  Roundhouse Engineering, Pearse live steamers.     AD

@Engineer-Joe posted:

Chris, I like the trains and layout. I love the grass!

I need that!

Joe, the grass is fake, the only kind to have when it hits 115 degrees.  Plus no water to mess up trains.  I elevated the back 50ft of my mainline 13" so I would not have to bend down quite so far.

Chris S. 

I have an elevated layout in O gauge.

An architect a town over from me puts up an elevated g scale display every Christmas. He used his professional background to designed all of the loops to have zero grade regardless of the hills on his front lawn. I've spoken to his in the past about how he built it, he used a laser level and plumb lines to measure everything out. The incredible part is that he takes puts everything up and takes everything down every year! He is such a friendly person and truly enjoys sharing the hobby with the community. 

Here's a video of the set-up during the day where it's easy to see his handywork, there's also a video on my channel of the display at night.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P91v5FpSu30

Wow, that's a lotta trains! and work....

My layout . Aristocraft Stainless track survived 16 years so far. Minimal issues over the years. Can't say the same for their accessories/buildings.

@FireOne posted:

I love that the people on this forum are happy to share and help others, no matter the gauge.  This is my backyard layout in Las Vegas (yes it's hot already).  Double track mainline now with 8 bridges and over 30ft of trestle.  Trackpower with RC.

This is my military train with WW2 planes, tanks and ve

 

Chris S.

Hey Chris,  that's a really nice consist there - especially the two flats with the WW2 fighters. I recognize the P51 but is that a P47 on the first car?

Sam, yes it is a 1/32 P47, found them on the bay, they come built and decorated, cheap too.  They work great as payloads as they come with the wings separate to make them fit in a smaller package, super easy to modify for payloads.  Have a bunch of German planes too but trying to figure out why an American train would be carrying Messerschmitts and Focke Wulfs on them.  War captures maybe?  Glad to include them if someone can give me a good reason.  Suggestions anyone?

Chris S.

War captures for air shows sounds good!

That's all that I needed to hear Art, looks like a new project.  I think I have a Spitfire and Zero also, have to maintain some diversity.  I may just leave them entirely assembled and place them in the middle of my putting green (fake grass) to complete the airshow look.  Great idea Art, period airfield.

Chris S.

Playing outside a bit.

Here are photos of G gauge trains on the G&O.  NH Joe