Welcome to the forum! That's a nice looking bridge in your photo! It looks like you are planning to build an outdoor garden railway. Is the track in your photo G-scale? Can you tell us a bit more about what you are planning to build? What scale, available space, control system, etc?
I'm working in G Scale. I have 4 pond and 3 waterfalls on terraces. I'll be using 2 of the terraces and a long grade through the woods to connect the two. I got a lot of DC controls of of craigslist from someone who didn't know their value, So I'll go that route but may change to DCC down the road.
The first area that will be themed is based on an attraction from Disneyland from my childhood that predates Big Thunder Railroad called Mine Train through Nature's Wonderland. It will have Geysers and mud pots and a bubbling hot spring. For animals, bears, beavers, elk, a bobcat and wild boar, and cougars. That will keep me busy this year.
That garden area looks great! I remember riding on that Disneyland mine train you're talking about. Modeling it should be great fun. One thing you might consider is track cleaning. You will have quite a length of track, and it'll all be close to the ground. That would mean a lot of bending over, and a sore back, using some common track cleaning methods.
Here are a few options.
First, you might use one of those lightweight vacuum cleaners, sometimes called "electric brooms" to suck up most of the dust that's sure to accumulate.
Next use a sponge mop, wet with alcohol, to wipe dirt off the
track. If the track gets really corroded, a piece of fine-grit sandpaper wrapped around a dry sponge mop can be used.
Or you could go to battery power for your locomotives, and radio control. Doing this basically eliminates nearly all track cleaning, since the locomotives don't need to get power from the rails.
Great looking layout.
Lots of effort there.
I am located in Stratford Ct. Our club is building a G layout. Check the G forum. We are open every Saturday in the summer, 1- 4 if you wish to visit.
Wow! It looks great, much better than what I was able to do back in the day. I mentioned on another thread that Piko sells a track cleaning loco that runs on 6 double or triple A batteries, not sure which, and will run for two hours. As you may know or will soon find out, track cleaning is a huge part of outdoor G. Having said all that, the layout looks great.
I ended up going battery powered and radio controlled with RailPro. It was just a lot easier for me. Next year I will continue the line along the edge of the wall and down to the next level. I made a video usng the soundtrack from the original Disneyland ride.
Welcome, that's a very nice garden. I'm a palm tree lover. I live in the tropics and 13 years ago I created my own jungle with over 60 different palm trees from all over the world. First I thought about at least setting up the track all over the garden but the harsh climate, dust, temperatures around 100 F all year round and the 6 month long rainy season (it's like firefighters pumping water, lol) prevented me from doing so. I had to go indoors with my N and HO scale layouts. I watch the bigger scale on Youtube. So I'm looking forward to seeing your garden layout, how it progresses. So please let me know, thank you.
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