Garden Railway Forum

Hi all
Recently I obtained some OO starter gear to re-ignite my passion for model railways. Just an off the shelf hornby Flying Scotsman and simple set track. Price-wise it was a steal. Anyway - inspired by a number of videos on Youtube, I have seen many garden based OO simple layouts and I was thinking of doing a layout in the garden. My garden is well maintained and pretty sheltered from wind.

So my initial questions are what kind of track, connectors and other things will I need to get or consider?

I get I will need to clear the tracks before any running and all electrics will only be connected to the track through temporary terminals as I would not keep anything outdoors except the track and probably some of the scenery (if I get that far).

Hi and welcome.
You are right that people do have 00 in the garden, but personally, having tried it myself, I wouldn't go there again. It isn't just keeping leaves etc off the track, but keeping 12v electrical pickup cleanliness to an acceptable standard is a nightmare.

However, if you are determined to try, nickel silver rail is a must, do NOT go for steel rail, it WILL rust. You can used ns rail joiners for alignment, but don't try to use them for electrical connectivity between track lengths, they corrode and you will lose the connection.
All rail joints must be bonded using soldered dropper wires and ensure that they are looped to allow for expansion, don't just solder a straight length of wire across the joint.
Depending on the length of run and complexity of track layout, you may well find that voltage drop is a problem, so running fairly hefty gauge bus wires under the boards and running droppers feeds at intervals is a good idea and much easier to do from the start rather than trying to retro-fit to cure a problem subsequently.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Hi and welcome.

If you can advise on if you are using DC or DCC then I can help you.

Hi and welcome, i have seen succesful 00 gauge garden layouts however as said i believe keeping the track clean is a nightmare that of course is the beauty of live steam or battery sm32/45 apart form a few wipes over with paraffin on the gradients and a check for leaves you dont have to worry about anything track wise really

tom_tom_go:113552 wrote:Hi and welcome.

If you can advise on if you are using DC or DCC then I can help you.

Although the loco is DCC ready, the controller etc is all analogue I believe. So I was going to use that.