Finally uncovered a way you can combine your wife’s love of back yard sun bathing and your love of toy locomotives, huh? These g gauge toy locomotives are definitely the trains for your family! You get to have fun in the sun while planning your own personal toy locomotive empire. But how to begin? Your outdoor space will have a huge say in the kind of design you choose. That said, there are some basic considerations when you are creating your g gauge train configuration.
Use the topography of your yard to frame the decisions you make in terms of train choice: Weather and topography should play into the choices you make about your g scale track design. If you live in a wet, cold climate and have snow and rain as a fairly constant cover for your yard, consider having a covered track. But if you live in the hills of Berkeley or San Francisco and your back yard is somewhat inclined you will want to take this into consideration as well. Climate and terrain are just as important as spatial considerations for g gauge locomotives. These topographical features, however, can also greatly aid the realism and the complexity of our railroad designs.
Play peek-a-boo with your track plan: One of the best ways of maximizing interest to our g scale model railroad layouts is to use the flora of our back yards to enhance the visual excitement of our track plan.
Play peek-a-boo with the viewer by curling the train into the natural features of the yard. The lazy way is to run your track through a bush, but if you’re really ambitious you might create a mountain pass or sharp gorge right in your back yard. Nothing compares to seeing your g gauge train appear and disappear, appear and disappear—peek-a-boo…peek-a-boo….
Work with the major landmarks of your yard: If you have a completely empty yard then this is not a consideration, but since most of us have things other than trains and grass in your back yards, your best bet is to take these backyard landmarks and work with them. Waterworks can really add a contemplative element to your garden railroad. A train track looped around a trickling stone fountain or past a spitting stone cherub can make for a particularly eye catching feature.
Don’t forget landscape accessories; they’re not just for the little trains anymore: Finally, to really enhance the full reality of our g scale model railroad layouts we are well served by incorporating features like whistle stops and trestle bridges to make our model train worlds as realistic and detailed as possible. The planning, building and detailing and weathering of these structures and features can be one of the most fun and fulfilling aspects of a model railroad. It is much more rewarding to spend in rainy Sunday afternoon detailing and coloring a model train whistle stop than watching reruns of I Love Lucy.
G scale model trains are so popular right now, you shouldn’t be surprised if you neighbors are willing to shell out cold hard cash to come over and see your setup. But the best reason to take part in this rewarding activity is that it is just good old fashioned fun!
Here is more information on G Scale Model Trains. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Model Trains.
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