The layout in the back yard is where all the fun takes place for many garden railroad or G scale hobbyists. There are a few private indoor G scale layouts in existence, but they do often take up most or all of the basement of one's house. Some hobbyists focus on the trains and their operation with minimal attention to diorama. Other hobbyists make a fine art of highly detailed diorama to create real life scenes on the layout.
The major difference between indoor and outdoor layouts is the weather and what one must do to deal with weather. Making all of the buildings and other diorama weatherproof does require a little extra effort on the outdoor layout. But the big bonus with an outdoor layout is that the greenery is all live! That's where the "garden" part of garden railroad comes in. Garden railroaders learn about miniature trees, low ground cover, and other plants that look reasonably to scale on the layout.
Many hobbyists find pleasure in the building of their layout and building things to put on their layout. For some, it is almost a form of meditation to build things for their layout. It is most certainly always a unique mix of art and engineering. For these people, the building of the layout is where the real fun is, and running trains is what we do to show friends what we've built.
The entertainment value is not to be overlooked. Family and friends are intrigued, amused, amazed, entertained, and sometimes even enlightened. The layout becomes a new social gathering place.
We suspect nobody really knows exactly how many private layouts exist in the Twin Cities area. Not all of the private layout owners join any particular club. While we became aware of quite a few through membership in another club, we also found out through Facebook groups about other local layouts where owners were not members of the any particular club.
Why would we volunteer at a museum if we have our own layout at home? Volunteering at a museum is a great way to meet other hobbyists. It is an opportunity to learn. It is an opportunity to share what you already know for the benefit of others. It is an opportunity to be exposed to railroad history, and depending on the museum, be exposed to the history of the model railroad hobby.
Individual member layouts will be featured on this page with more layouts added as we continue to build membership and build this web site. Be sure to also check out the Blog pages where members post updates as layout builds or other projects evolve.
Birchwood & St. Croix Railroad models Narrow Gauge railroad from the early 1900's. All of the locomotives are steam engines and all track is Narrow Gauge style. The Shay locomotive on the logging train is a scale model of the Shays used in, and invented specifically for, logging in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The other locomotives are also scale models of Narrow Gauge locomotives with specific histories from that era.
The Tower Line Division of the CNW (Chicago and North Western) is a new garden railroad under construction. It will be an exciting project with the centerpiece being a 92 foot long model of the Kate Shelley High Bridge. The builder will be writing about the project as it moves along and we will continue to post pictures and articles. In addition, this project has its own blog in our blog pages.
