N Gauge In The Garden

[Smokin Joe]

Anyone ever tried it, or know of garden railways using N gauge? Smallest I've heard of myself is OO.

[longbridge]

Never heard of it myself Joe but no doubt someone would have done it somewhere, I tried to Google the subject but it never turned up much, maybe you could be the first

[elmo]

It has been done, I have seen it in a book which I cannot find at the moment to give a title. Lots of problems with mild winds and small grit reported to spoil the running.
Elmo

[Tank]

I tried it for about 5 weeks, but it was very difficult to keep the track clean.  I only had two lengths of Flexi.

[elmo]

Tank - what problems did you have with the track. I am a sinner, as I run 00 in the garden. Unlike indoors it the track gets a thick coat of crud just from being left out. It needs a good track rubber scrub if left for a couple of days. What was the N gauge track like?
Elmo

[Tank]

It was the pre Nickel Silver Peco track, and it just didn't agree with the elements.  Yes, constant rubbing was one thing that had to be done, as the damp didn't agree with the metal.  Then of course you have leaves and other bits that may be blown on the track.  I even had a snail that left it's mark on one part.  Too much hassle for me, so I gave up!   I'm sure the Nickel Silver track would be easier.

[elmo]

A snail, PAH, I have 9 cats and a resident hedge hog to deal with. And on a funny note, the neighbourhood kids like playing with my cats and it apears that some of the kids have come into my garden, as evidenced by the matchbox/corgi cars etc that i have found. Two infant school age boys come to talk to me "is your garden the one with the train set in it?" so you have been in to have a look then ... "No I had a guess"!!!! Cant argue with that!!!!! and the parents fell about laughing when they were convincingly trying to say that they had not been playing in other peoples gardens.

[zwilnik]

For garden railways it might be better to re-jig the trains to run on battery power with mini-RC rather than track power, like some of the larger O & G gauge ones do. Might be feasible for a larger diesel or a steamer with a support coach (or two).

[EtchedPixels]

For garden railways it might be better to re-jig the trains to run on battery power with mini-RC rather than track power, like some of the larger O & G gauge ones do. Might be feasible for a larger diesel or a steamer with a support coach (or two).

Steam you might do with the older Farish locos and fill the tender with battery. I'd worry a bit about weight however in all these cases. You are not going to need the big battery of an O gauge setup but you are going to need a reasonable amount of capacity.

[zwilnik]

For garden railways it might be better to re-jig the trains to run on battery power with mini-RC rather than track power, like some of the larger O & G gauge ones do. Might be feasible for a larger diesel or a steamer with a support coach (or two).

Steam you might do with the older Farish locos and fill the tender with battery. I'd worry a bit about weight however in all these cases. You are not going to need the big battery of an O gauge setup but you are going to need a reasonable amount of capacity.

Yeah, I'm thinking something that would charge each loop at the station or water tower so you only need enough charge for a circuit with a little in reserve. Feasibly you could use those hydro batteries and actually top up with water each circuit I suspect we're just on the edge of battery technology being practical for large N Gauge garden layouts.

[Fratton]

Now this I had wondered about even in n guage, I used to fly miniature remote control helicopters (indoor ones) and some of the cheaper ones needed pluging in for a few minutes and would fly a few minutes, maybe with a capacitor battery type thing a battery could stretch from station to station and charge through the wheels on an isolated stretch of charging rail at stations etc???

[Deltic9001]

Hi,

I seem to remember an article in the Railway Modeller in the 1970s where somebody had built an outdoor layout - it was all continental stock. There was a large girder bridge over a small pond but the problems listed (from memory) were:

- large fish on the pond causing the bridge supports to shake
- birds digging for worms and depositing earth on the line
- leaves on the line during autumn were no fun
- anything more than a slight breeze caused derailments
- snail shells on the line acting like major rockfalls

Regards,
Andy Hoskins
Falkirk

[Newportnobby]

Hi,

I seem to remember an article in the Railway Modeller in the 1970s where somebody had built an outdoor layout - it was all continental stock. There was a large girder bridge over a small pond but the problems listed (from memory) were:

- large fish on the pond causing the bridge supports to shake
- birds digging for worms and depositing earth on the line
- leaves on the line during autumn were no fun
- anything more than a slight breeze caused derailments
- snail shells on the line acting like major rockfalls

Regards,
Andy Hoskins
Falkirk

So it was prototypical then

[Deltic9001]

Hi,

Here's a link to some photographs of an outdoor N gauge layout:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ngauge-photo-archive/photos/album/1431584365/pic/list

Best Regards,
Andy Hoskins
Falkirk

[Sprintex]

Link just sends you to a log-in page, no good if you don't have a Yahoo account 


Paul