Thinking about OO garden railway.

[rik_t]

Hi,
Have been thinking about building a OO gauge railway for a while now. Original plan was to build an 8x4 setup in the garage but now really thinking about putting one around the outside of the garden, probably in an L shape along two fences.

Is there any guides out there for wood to use, how to power etc? I'm totally new so unsure about most aspects, I have the planning software so will soon start planning on there.

Any help would be welcome.

Thanks

[rik_t]

Been out this morning to measure up roughly where I think it could go in the garden. Looking like an L shape with one lengh around 6m and the other around 9m. You think this will be too large? I plan on using some treated railway sleepers directly onto the ground and put the track on them, then just use a couple side by side for the wider station areas at the end of the L shape. They seem to come in 2.4m lenghs so maybe do the L shape 4.8m x 7.2m ??

[dan8400]

Hi, I have not got an outdoor railway but I do work with wood. Large Dog Kennels and Garden Sheds etc.

The railway sleepers are perfect. If you are going to use anything else it really needs to be Tanalised (or other pressure treatment). This will give it a long service life with little or no maintainence. If you decide to raise the layout off the ground you can use 3" or 4" fence posts, again pressure treated is best.

A lot of people use roofing felt on top of the track bed. This has two benefits. First, it kinda looks enough like ballast to get away with. And second it protects the track bed from the weather.

As for power, I would run a Bus wire all around underneath for DCC. Or for DC Feed each section with it's own thick wire and make a 'section Bus' and join to every piece of track in the section.

Good luck and don't forget to post lots of updates

Thanks
Dan

[thomas the plank engine]

Check out the other garden layouts here first, will probably be able to answer most of your questions, but don't be afraid to ask as sometimes what we take for granted is not so obvious to others

Ian