english-electric

Thanks for the replies, and I certainly will post my track plan and pictures at some point. Peco SL track with nickel silver rails is definitely the best option, though it may be quite a while before inaugural train runs, a lot of landscaping and mini engineering work beckons... Regards, Mark

Hi everyone, I've been toying with the idea of building a garden railway in the past few years, and since major clearance of Leylandii trees (28 of them!) along the border wall and subsequent landscaping (small part of it done so far) and it has enabled me to have the blank canvas to start from, sort out the plants and paths while incorporating garden railway as well, so that the line blends in landscape and not dominate the garden. I am fortunate to have a decent sized garden, the border wall is 100ft length and this is where I envisage running OO gauge railway at approx 2ft level with a simple loop giving an impression of a double track. I don't plan to have any pointwork or fiddle about with lot of electrics, my philosophy is to keep it very simple. At one end, I plan to build a Summer House where track would run into, for stabling and swap train sets. What I'd like to ask is, does the OO scale rails rust when get left outside, do they not? I once left a small piece of Hornby track outside few years ago (when idea of a garden railway first surfaced in my mind) and they were completely rusted and unusable by the British weather! I see various OO garden railways on YouTube and how do their rails not get rusted? That's what I'd like to know. Initially, I would just power the track with conventional power unit based in the Summer House and run trains, but would it be enough power for that length? DCC would be a longer term plan as I have a large collection of locos and units that are not DCC fitted (you can imagine the expense...) so if anyone has any suggestions on suitable power unit for garden railway, I would be pleased to hear from you. I will put some pictures of my forthcoming construction of the garden railway when my time allows. Thanks in advance, Mark