Welcome to My Garden Railroad...Beginnings

I began in Large Scale (Garden Railroading) back in 1994 with a purchase of a Bachmann Big Hauler starter set. I began to accumulate track and rolling stock (mostly Christmas Cars). I had started working on an outdoor layout in 1996, I even had a friend, who was a terrific modeller and artist draw up a track plan and a sketch of the layout.

I built the retaining wall for this layout and begin to plan the sub roadbed. In 2000, we decided to sell that house and move into bigger digs.

As we searched for our next house, I kept looking at the back yard to see if it would be suitable for a garden railroad. Some were, some were not. We chose a house that was really not conducive for a railroad. The first Christmas in the new house, I laid track in an elongated figure 8 in the back yard for the holidays. I spent hours sitting there watching the train go round and round, but the big problem is that it took up most of the grassy area where the kids could play and where we would set up tables when we entertained large groups.

At the same time, I got my hands on a 1969 Camaro convertible project car....needless to say...the trains fell by the wayside. For the next few years, I would set up a circle of track around the Christmas tree and spend hours on the floor watching the train go around the circle. After a few years, I stopped even setting up the track.

Fast forward 10 years...in the summer of 2015, I decided to remove a section of grass that never really grew and lay down pavers. Since the people who owned the house before us did a crappy job of cutting the concrete next to this area, a square paver would not butt up to it correctly. I decided to leave a 4 inch gap and fill that with small stones between the concrete and pavers. One day I decided to lay a 2 foot piece of track in the gravel. At the same time, my daughter was pinning train related items on Pintrest for my grandson. BAM!...I have an idea...create an outdoor layout around the patio for my grand kids...at least that is how I sold the idea to my wife.

Since I had a ton of track, I really wouldnt need to spend a whole lot of money to get this up and operational. My wife had a few conditions, we still needed to be able to put a table and chairs on this patio when we had parties and it had to be kid friendly.

I started by laying a loop of track and then fit the pavers to the inside area. I didnt just want an oval, so I added a few curves and since I had a few switches, I added a passing siding. Once I had the track plan laid out, I started putting the pavers in. Once the pavers were in, I started digging out the area where the track would go. Most places I went down about 4 inches, lined the trench with weed fabric, pea gravel and then the drainage rock that would be the ballast for the track.

So that is how I got started in garden railroading and the beginnings of my new layout.