How to find items in your chosen scale

three scale rules on a table

How to find items in your chosen scale Download the PDF here. Once you have settled on a scale that strikes the right balance for you, you can then begin to assemble the pieces to build your railroad—locomotives, rolling stock, buildings, vehicles, and people. Some manufacturers are good enough to mark the scale of their […]

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Last load of logs for the day on the Birdhaven & Hemlock

Birdhaven & Hemlock garden railroad

Name: Bob Moffett Railroad Name: Birdhaven & Hemlock Location: West Virginia Scale: Mixed Theme: Late 1950s- early 1960s Description: This is the last load of logs being brought in at the end of the day, pulled by the railroad’s newly acquired Climax locomotive. As the sun goes down, the lights come on for a different […]

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Social distancing comes to the DD&C/M

Social distancing comes to the DD&C/M

Name: John Barrett Forum User Name: JohnniebGoode Railroad Name: DD&C/M Location: Sacramento, CA Scale: 4 yr old’s imagination Theme: Was western, but now Disney thanks to 4 yr old Granddaughter Description: Social distancing comes to the DD&C/M.   […]

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Book review: ’50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants’

Book cover.

50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants Garden Railways file image   Was Elmer Fudd, Looney Tunes’ little rifle-toting hunter of Bugs Bunny fame, justified in shooting at Bugs Bunny? Remember how the “waskily wabbit” tunneled under Elmer’s garden yanking down one juicy carrot after another? In cartoons, we cheer for the bunny, but what if he had […]

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Cooper’s ice plant

Trailing ice plant, Cooper’s ice plant

  Common name: Trailing ice plant, Cooper’s ice plant Latin name: Delosperma cooperi USDA Hardiness Zones: 6 to 9 Cultural needs: Well-drained soil, sun or part shade Plant size: 3-inches high by 3-feet wide Sometimes called hardy ice plant or purple ice plant, this low succulent is not to be confused with the larger purple […]

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A beginner’s guide to dwarf Alberta spruce trees

garden railway with lots of rocks and conifers

This is a beginner’s guide to dwarf Alberta spruce trees. Across the country, hundreds of us rely on one, small scale, slow growing, almost perfectly conical evergreen to fill our miniature forests, towns, and mountains: dwarf Alberta spruce (Picea glauca ‘Conica’). How do you prune them, what kind of conditions do they really need, and […]

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Bigger and better: 7/8n2 in the garden

78n2_1

The author and several helpers modeled the Alhambra Trestle over the course of three years. A 7/8″ Fairymead pulls Dave Frediani cars past 22 Japanese maples, both dwarf and semi-dwarf, back to the caboose. Nancy Norris After decades of building and maintaining garden railways, I’ve built my own railway for low maintenance and live-steam access. […]

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