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Hi There, It's so nice to see a new garden railway in the making. The one extra thing I would do while the sides of the rails are still clean, is to solder a jumper wire across each rail joint. The fishplates will probably loose their connectivity after a winter of being outside! It's so much easier to do this before the rails get dirty and you'll have much better reliable running. But don't solder the fishplates themselves as you need to allow for the expansion and contraction in hold and cold weather.

Track laying finished today and a nice wee run round. A few rough areas I need to fix, but happy enough with how it looks.

Long time lurker and jealous of my old man's G-Scale garden railway, I finally decided to throw something together over the last few days. The trackbed is made from a mix of marine ply and spare decking boards I had lying around. I had originally just painted them with some textured paint, but the colour looked awful so I have bodged together a better texture using some kiln dried sand and a few layers of "water resistent" glue, we'll see if it lasts. The wood isn't fixed, but rather layed on sand to level and the gravel is essentially acting as a ballast to hold in place. I've still to finish the out and back, plant up the rockery areas and re-add the half barrel to the circle of bricks with my potted acer. Had some very early testing today, hoping a first loop run will be tomorrow. I've no doubt made some cardinal errors, but it's been fun so far, so we'll see how it lasts and make improvements/corrections when required.

Just a shout out that in Issue 217 July 2025 of Hornby Magazine there is an article on maintaining a Garden Railway, featuring Trevor Jones' wonderful Great Wakering Flackwell Heath & Whitefield Garden Railway.

Hi there, Welcome to this forum. I've mostly only had experience using Peco code 100 flexitrack, of which some has been out in my garden for over twenty years with no UV protection and it's still doing fine! I've built my trackbed base in concrete and the track is held down with a no-more-nails type of adhesive and them ballasted and glued using SBR. If anything, I find it is the fish plates that fail first! These are some pictures of the track which I laid down in around 2003.

As my first foray into the garden (and into railway modelling at all for around 40 years!), I have just bought a job lot of Bachmann E-Z Track, with built-in plastic roadbed and nickel-silver rails. This will be laid in a simple "temporary" ground-level oval (possibly with a passing loop), approximately 2m by 4m, on the decking to educate the Domestic Authorities as to the benefits of running a railway in the garden. Once phase 1 has been achieved, Phase 2 is intended to add a junction from the oval on a raised track along the fence and at places over the flowerbeds, gently sloping to around ground level, over about 8-9m then a loop round a tree (with a lift-up section to allow access to the rear gate) to return up the gradient back towards Phase 1. Phase 3 will involve a junction from the loop to allow a ground-level(-ish) extension along the border to a low-level station at Lawnedge. Phase 4 will be a junction from the oval to terminate somewhere near the Backdoor. I have some Peco flexitrack which I intend using for Phases 2-4, but an alternative may be to use Kato Unitrack, which is similar to the Bachmann eBay purchase, but considered better quality, more expensive, and less available second-hand. Does anybody have experience using these tracks outdoors, and is there anything I can treat them with to reduce the impact of UV from sunlight. Also, how much of a problem is track expansion likely to be, and what can I do to minimise damage?

Wondering why you use Peco code 100 as opposed to Peco code 75?

Hi Thomas, Yes, I also find this hobby frustrating, depressing and demotivating at times. I certainly have a love/hate relationship with my railway! Over the winter, mice have urinated all over my points in my garage, its been very frustrating trying to get them working electrically again, but however much I'm tempted to just give up, after a short break for a few days, the love returns and I normally find a solution to my problem! So keep on in there Thomas, you've achieved so much amazing work on your layout! We all know that building a railway outside is always going to be challenging, but maybe that's why we do it? We really push the boundaries of what's possible and that's what gives us the most fulfilling sense of achievement!!!

So, since I'm having the same problem again this year and no solution in sight, I'm about to dismantle everything and find another hobby. I've spent four summers in a row repairing the switches in the station entrance because they were damaged by the servo twitching when the layout was powered up. I've tried everything: power and data supply to the decoders via track from the command station. Only data supply via track and external power supply from the transformer. All voltages from 12V to 18V from the said transformer. First turn on the data supply, then the power supply. Vice versa. Turn on the decoders one by one. No matter what I do, after a long break, the servos in the station entrance (and only those!) run amok, destroying the switches and becoming uncontrollable. Since I don't want to be stuck for another year, without a solution to this problem, I'll resort to demolition and find another hobby. This is just too frustrating and depressing and demotivating. 😭😭😭

Welcome Alan to the site,. I Hope you find the site as useful as I did when I started Howey Valley three years ago. When the first winter came had a 8x4 shed built so I could enjoy the hobby. I used Peco code 100 track and points and over the years have had no problems. Wish you well in your endeavour. Ken

Hello all, Just back into OO after a hiatus of 35 years! My dream is a OO garden railway so I’ve YouTube’d a lot of channels looking for information - how to’s - do’s and don’ts - etc. In terms of books on the topic I’ve seen CJ Freezer’s book, but not bought it just yet. Thinking is to use Peco nickel silver and DCC and a new barrel board timber shed is underway. Regarding that, I do have concerns regarding the temperature range in the shed and the effect not only on expansion/contraction of the track but it’s effect on electrics electronics and the stock. so glad to have found this site! cheers everyone! Alan

Hi All, I thought I would share these photos with you of the newly delivered Quad Art Coaches from Ellis Clark Trains. They are the most beautifully detailed set of coaches I've ever bought.

But you are also well on your way to becoming Pontifex Maximus. 😎👍

This is a clearer shot of the bottom of the garden, showing the lift-out bridges across the garden path.

Hi All, This week I've had some repair work done to my roof, so it was a good opportunity to take some shots of the railway from the scaffolding. The first photo is of the top section of the garden, the overgrown pond and streams are on the right with the concrete trackbed of the yet to be finished branch line below it and on the left, the main station and figure of eight loop. The second photo is looking down the whole side of the garden towards the other station beyond the viaducts and the last shot is the bottom return loop through the garage.

Hi Mark! That's hand-built. Largest radius point commercially available in H0 is 2200mm from Tillig. Best Regards Thomas

Hi Thomas, I'm very impressed with your points (switches), are they hand-built? In the UK I've never seen 6100mm radius! In the UK Peco's largest radius point is only 1524mm.

I replaced a switch with a larger switch with a larger branch radius (6110 instead of 2200mm) to allow for a more pleasing track layout.

I invested some time in creating and planting catenary poles.

To prevent the train from falling several feet into the depths in the event of a derailment like last year, I have started to build protective walls in the exposed areas.

Thanks Ken for your comments. The lighting is powered from 2 AAA batteries with a latching reed switch so they can be turned on/off by passing a magnet over it.