Why You May Read Our Articles for Free

Now for the details. Let's start with the content of our articles. Paul Race, our chief writer and editor, was a model railroader in the 1960s, working in both HO and S scale. Since 1980, Paul has worked as a technical writer for Fortune 500 companies, including AT&T, NCR, and Nationwide Insurance.

Paul bought his first Large Scale train (a battery-powered Bachmann Big Hauler) in 1984. He got more seriously involved in Garden Railroading in the mid-1990s when he bought a house with two acres. At that time, almost everyone in North America was still fairly new to the hobby. Paul did what he always does as a professional writer. He asked questions, read everything he could get his hands on, learned quickly, and tried things out for himself. He then began writing memos, articles, and newsletters to help others. In fact, many of the articles on this site started out as answers to "Frequently Asked Questions" from beginners. In 1996, Paul started the "Family Garden Trains"(tm) resource to encourage other garden railroaders and to start organizing his growing library of information about the hobby.

Paul's first Garden Train web site was actually called the New Boston and Donnels Creek site, after his own garden railroad (those pages are now part of the Family Garden Trains(tm) site). But as the hobby kept growing, the list of questions from beginners kept growing. In 1999, Paul reformatted the site into the Family Garden Trains(tm) site to help beginners find the most important information quickly. Paul also began recruiting fellow hobbyists, industry experts, and others to review his articles to make certain he was providing a balanced and effective description of complex issues. In other words, Family Garden Trains(tm) wants to be the most reliable, as well as the most useful, Internet source for information about getting started in Garden Railroading.

If You Build It People Will Come - Since those early days, Family Garden Trains has helped tens of thousands of readers learn about Garden Railroading and has motivated many of those people to get off the recliner and into the back yard with a shovel. As our readers' railroads and skills have grown, we have added some articles of interest to "intermediate" users as well as beginners. We also frequently update existing articles when the facts related to the content has changed (for example when new construction methods are tested, or new control technologies are introduced).

In spite of all the additions and updates, though, we note that most beginners still have the same questions now that they did in 1995, although the answers may have changed slightly. So it seems more helpful to maintain an updated and growing library of articles that address the needs of beginning and intermediate Garden Railroaders than to move on to "more advanced" topics and let the "beginner-oriented" material languish. We should not be your "last stop" for information about garden railroading, gardening, model railroading, or any other related interests, but we want to be an effective "first stop" for everyone just getting their "toes wet"in the hobby. Is it working? When our free Primer articles register thousands of hits a month, and readers tell us nice things like "My garden railroad grew up on your web pages," we tend to believe that it is.

Broadening Our Horizons Something else that happens is that folks with related interests have found their way to our pages too. Folks with other kinds of trains such as collectible trains, or special Christmas trains. Folks who are trying things that not many other folks have done, like running Lionel trains in the garden, or running model trains with collectible villages. For a while we tried keeping all the questions and answers, and the new articles that came out of those under the Family Garden Trains(tm) umbrella. But it just got too complicated. So we added "sister sites" about subjects that interested our readers but didn't quite fit with the garden railroading site. One fun part of that is seeing how many folks get into trains because of a Christmas collectible set and then learn about garden railroading. Or the number of garden railroaders who have On30 railroads inside. Or the folks who only set up their garden trains at Christmas. And all of those related hobbies have helped our sites to grow and attracted new readers.

Worldwide Readership - We have always had readers in other countries. In the last year, we've gained many more readers from Eastern and Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and Asia. Some of those folks live where it's almost impossible to get garden trains or information about garden trains, so we're their only link to the hobby - another reason we appreciate your support.

Earning a Dubious Honor Another indicator of our success is the fact that we've become the most imitated Garden Railroading site on the web. Many childish and a few illegal things have happened, including plagiarism, trademark violation, setting up copycat sites to siphon off folks trying to find our site and so on. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we must have something good going on here. On the other hand the whole copying issue leads to the next point . . . .

Now for the free part. Paul and the other contributors to the Family Garden Trains(tm) pages believe that everyone involved in Garden Railroading (even our imitators) will benefit as more and more people are drawn to the hobby. For that reason, we consider it self-defeating to charge people who are just starting out for information that will help them decide whether to get into the hobby, and that will make their earliest efforts more rewarding. In the interest of "getting the word out," Paul and other contributors have also spoken at club meetings and conventions and made articles available in free pamphlets, club newsletters, and even other Internet resources (with prior permission, of course).

That said, many commercial resources on Garden Railroading and related subjects are worth the investment. Making good content available to you does cost money and you should support the online and print resources that add enjoyment to your hobby.

Back to What Free Means - The advertising on the Family Garden Trains(tm) site barely covers our Internet expenses, but that won't keep us from providing the best content we can for free as long as we can. Please note, though, that there is a difference between "free access" and public domain. You are allowed to print out any article from the Family Garden Trains(tm) web site for your own use. But we require prior permission for any other purpose, such as printing multiple copies to use at club meetings, or printing within club newsletters. Under no circumstances, is it permitted to post content from these pages on your own web sites or to republish these articles or extensive paraphrases of these articles under your own name. (For more information on why this is a problem please refer to our article about the difference between Free Access vs Free Reuse).

Finally, being "free" doesn't mean that we have no expenses. We do appreciate it when you support us by shopping through the Garden Train Store and Big Christmas Trains catalogs.

Just as important, we appreciate hearing from you with suggestions or other content that you think would help other Garden Railroaders to have a more rewarding experience.