A Garden Railway at Long Last

Longtime readers of this blog will know I've been chomping at the bit to build a garden railway. Well, this past February, I purchased an LGB Mogul at a train show. I've always wanted one. That seemingly innocuous exercise dumped gasoline on my smoldering enthusiasm.

I don't have the time or money to build an extensive garden line like I had when I was a kid. But I have the Pittsburg Division to satisfy my need to run multiple trains at once, so it's cool. Anyway, I was able to sell my wife on the project by proposing a raised vegetable garden that just happened to have a railroad in it.

I started off the festivities by purchasing some 8' landscape timbers from Home Depot. I spent the next day sawing and nailing them into the walls of my raised bed.

With the walls built, it took two trips to Walmart to buy 20 bags of "manure and humus" to fill the thing. Talk about going to Walmart to buy some crap!

For the track, I used some old Aristocraft sectional stuff I salvaged from my first garden railway. It forms an 8' x 5' loop. I used screenings purchased from a local stone and landscape firm. I dug a small trench where the track was to go and filled it with screening, then laid the track on top, ballasting it just like the prototype.

I finished things up with a few building from my old railroad. I planted some tomatoes, bell peppers, oregano, basil, and some other stuff.

All in all, it's a nifty little railroad. I learned long ago that with garden railways, the KISS principle needs to reign supreme.

I;ve dubbed the layout the "Ulster and Delaware."