This page was started in 1999 to encourage newcomers to garden railroading, and to help them avoid some pitfalls. Since then, the list of articles has grown and has benefitted from many suggestions, corrections, and additions, by industry leaders, professional gardeners, prominent hobbyists, and other authors and friends.
Our goal is not to treat every subject, but to cover the 20% of information about garden railroading that 80% of all beginning garden railroaders need to know. If you want to know why we are making these articles available for free, please visit our article on "Why Our Content is Free".
Please let us know if an article is helpful to you, or if you think it could be made more helpful.
In addition, please remember that all articles are for your personal use only; they are copyrighted by Paul D. Race and may not be copied without permission.
Introduction to Garden Railroading:
Planning a Garden Railroad: (For best results, read all the articles on this page before you get out a shovel, but these articles will be most important while you're doing early planning.
- Planning Your Garden Railroad for Watchability - Dreaming up a railroad that folks want to stick around and watch - July, 2006
- Planning Your Garden Railroad for Operations - Planning your railroad so that it will be especially fun to operate! - August, 2006
- Building a Garden Railroad on a Budget - Updated February, 2008
- Themes, Conventions, and Willing Suspension of Disbelief - Develop an "artistic vision" for your railroad that will help it be more rewarding to you and more interesting to visitors. Includes a review of literary and theme park design principles that anyone can apply - Updated April, 2008, with many new photos and examples.
- Accessible Garden Railroads - Reducing physical barriers to the world's greatest outdoor hobby. March, 2006
- Planning Your Garden Railroad for High Reliability - January, 2001
- Which Scale Should I Model? - Updated August, 2005
- Garden Railroad Track Options - Updated, June, 2008
- Is Aluminum Track a Viable Option? - New, June, 2008
Garden Railroad Construction Techniques - The articles in this section start easy, small, and temporary, and work toward more permanent and more elaborate. We also try to present new, cost-effective, and easy-to-use techniques in great detail, so even the most inexperienced gardener, landscaper, or carpenter can achieve permanent, quality results.
- Introduction to Garden Railroad Construction - An overview of the various recommended construction methods, with guidelines to help you decide which method is best for you - Updated April, 2008
1-Day Railroad - When You Have One Day to Build a Garden Railroad - September, 2005
- Raising a Ground-Level Railroad One way to get from a simple, ground-level railroad to a raised railroad without having to shut down operations for the summer - April, 2006
- Flextrack and Railbenders - How to get away from preformed curves into graceful right-of-ways. Recommended reading for planning raised railroads - April, 2006
- Building a Simple Raised Railroad- The definitive article on the most widely used and robust method for building a raised garden railroad. - January, 2006
- HDPE Flexible Roadbed - A more elaborate construction method, suitable for very large or unusual railroads. - Updated March, 2006
- HDPE Lumber In the Shop - Shows how to get large amounts of HDPE roadbed ready to install by working "smart" in the shop. Article by Bob Zajicek. - January, 2007
- Retaining Walls and Backfill - The definitive article on retaining walls for garden railroads. Includes photos and building tips for the most common ways to support your railroad, with guidelines to help you decide which method is best for you - June, 2006
- The Little Railroad That Grew - June, 2003 (This is not an article about construction per se, but it describes how a person might use rock garden techniques and others.)
- How We Built Our Garden Railroads - January, 2004. (How several other folks did it their way)
- New Article: Refurbishing Garden Railroad Roadbed - Why you should do things right in the first place, and how to fix problems without starting from "scratch." - New September, 2008
Plants for your Garden Railroad:
- Groundcover 101 - Updated August, 2005
- Trees for Your Trains - Choosing and Cultivating Dwarf Conifers The definitive article on planning, purchasing, trimming, planting, and maintaining evergreen plants that will give your railroad life and charm all year long - October, 2006
- Inexpensive and Low-Maintenance Plants for Garden Railroads - September, 2001
- The Secret Life of Perennials - June, 2001
Early Spring Color for your Garden Railroad - Start learning now how to make your railroad sparkle with bright color next Spring, in time to learn the name of things while you can still see them in bloom. Includes a bonus springtime "picture-poem" you can print as a poster! - April, 2006
- Gardening Safety Tips - July, 2005
O Gauge Outside
- Introduction to O Gauge Outside - The first two articles in a series that will show the "does and don'ts" of building an O gauge garden railroad. Lots of help from John and Gale Blessing; lots of photos from Dawn Hatfield. - May, 2007
- Using O Gauge Gargraves Track (Outside) - January, 2008
- Evolution of the B&P Garden Railroad (B&P) An O Gauge Hi-Rail Railroad Designed for Outdoor Use
- Part 1 - Designing an O Gauge Hi-Rail railroad for outdoor use
- Part 2 - Building an HDPE Roadbed Infrastructure That Will Survive Las Vegas Summers
- Part 3 - Finishing Touches on an HDPE Roadbed - Updated February, 2008
- Part 4 - Installing Atlas Nickel-Silver O-Gauge track on HDPE Roadbed - New May, 2008
- Part 5 - HDPE Roadbed Expansion in the Nevada Summer
- The next installment in the Canfield's HDPE-based O Gauge Outside project. - New July, 2008
- Using Lionel's TrainMaster™ Command Control Outside - October, 2007
- Fred Young's Ground-Level Arizona Railroad - A ground-level railroad that has lots of operational options and some unique ways of adapting to the Arizona summer sun. New February, 2008
Other Planning and Installation Issues:
Structures - February, 2005
- Stuff to Have on Hand - Supplies to keep around so you don't have to run to the store every time you want to work on a model. Feb., 2005
- Painting Plastic Structures - Updated October, 2007, with new photos and expanded directions.
- Painting a Piko Gingerbread House - A detailed procedure on how to prepare a small plastic building kit for years of unique, attractive service - February, 2008
- Painting the Colorado Model Structures Tower - A simple and inexpensive building project to help you get started customizing buildings for your railroad - October, 2007
- Glazing Windows with Lucite® - A step-by-step example to help you add a professional finishing touch to your buildings - October, 2007
- Recycle Road Spam - Clean up your neighborhood and get free building materials. New January, 2008
- Trashbashing 101 - Converting toys, bird feeders, and other non-train products to work with your garden railroad. December, 2003
- Mullions - Start collecting vegetable trays now so you have windowframes for your buildings later. April, 2003
- Trestles 101 - Introduction to building trestles for your garden railroad - it's not as hard as it looks! - July, 2007
- Building a Simple Foam Viaduct - An easy and possibly impressive way to fill the gap between your raised railroad and the ground - September, 2007
- New Article: Cast in Concrete - Ben Hartman's Stone Houses - A depression-era artist's "rock-solid" technique for making miniature outdoor buildings that have lasted 60+ years.New, September, 2008
Details for your Garden Railroad
Reference Information and Things to Think About
- Real-World Trains You can Model - What kind of railroad do you want to model? This is a summary of your basic choices, followed by a list of reading resources for learning more. Note: Unique resources you'll find only on our pages include:
- Thirty-Inch Railroading - The trains that "did more with less." Some 30" railroads provided all the functions of full-service common carriers on hastily-laid trackage that went boldly where no one else has gone before or since. New, April, 2008
- Small but Mighty - 30" Power - The unique "real-world" steam locomotives that pulled 30" trains. New, May, 2008
- The Little River Railroad - A standard-gauge logging railroad with common carrier aspirations. This Smoky Mountain railroad used compromises and combinations of equipment that hardly anyone would believe today if it wasn't for the photographs. New, August, 2008
- Introduction to Train and Car Cards - This is a companion article to the Planning Your Garden Railroad for Operations above. This article gives more detail about how folks use various planning techniques to run their railroads more like the real thing. - August, 2006
- Idiot-Friendly Digital Cameras for Photographing Trains - Updated, January, 2008
- Glossary of Garden Railroading Terms - Updated June, 2005
- Getting (and Keeping) the Kids Involved - Updated 7, 2007
- Where to Buy Garden Railroading Stuff - Updated 9, 2006
- Where Do I Go From Here? - Updated, April, 2008
Other Articles about Garden Railroading and Large Scale - Past Family Garden Trains articles about garden railroading that don't fit neatly into the categories above. Most of them are still wholesome and useful for most purposes.
Letters to the Editor - You may have a question we've already attempted to answer for someone else. Click here to see. This file is updated often. Be sure and stop by every few days for updates.
Other People's Articles
- If you want to get "down-and-dirty" technical details on most of the commonly used Large Scale locomotives and rolling stock, refer to George Shreyer's "Technical Tips Page". This page also reviews many power and control solutions for your locomotives, including DCC, Crest/AristoCraft Train Engineer, etc. In fact, George is one of our "gurus," and this resource will be important to you as your railroad grows.
- If you want some quick ideas for inexpensive and relatively easy
scratchbuilding projects, look at Phil Creer's Toenail Ridge Shortline Articles Page.
David Buffington
George Shreyer
Vance Bass
Tony Walsham
Marc Horovitz
Scot Osterweil
Wil Davis
Peter Wine
TATE (Whoever you are)
Fred Mills
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Note: Family Garden Trains™, Garden Train Store™, Big Christmas Trains™, BIG Indoor Trains™, and BIG Train Store™ are trademarks of Breakthrough Communications (www.btcomm.com). All information, data, text, and illustrations on this web site are Copyright (c) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 by Paul D. Race. Reuse or republication without prior written permission is specifically
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Counter Reset 10/27/2004 
*Note: In some cases, I also wanted to provide an authoritative reference to reduce some of the misunderstandings about issues like scale and gauge that have caused problems and even arguments. To that end, I sought and received the assistance of many industry professionals when putting together articles such as "Which Scale Should I Model?" Thanks again to all who participated.