A little while ago we were running some of our battery powered 1:20.3 equipment on the new layout that we had installed for the 2010 National Garden Railway Convention. We had installed a tunnel, as I like tunnels and they are a great place to temporarily park a train when you have to run inside or take a break.

Well this time when I came back from a break something was wrong – very wrong. I had powered on the engine, but there was no movement and it did not come out of the tunnel. As I got closer my mind had a hard time comprehending what I was seeing. Was that dirt on the track? Maybe part of the hill had fallen down? Maybe it was….

Oh man. Visions of Caddy Shack raced through my head. It was varmints and this one had blocked my engine and cars INSIDE the tunnel. I cleared a path for the train to get out and she was covered with dirt. No damage everything was OK, but round one went to the varmint.

The war has just started.

5 Things you should know about my railroad.

1. It is our second railroad. We moved two years ago and just got started this past summer on the new railroad. This railroad will be six times as big as our first railroad.

2. railroad for videos for LSOL.com we are designing the railroad so that there are four distinct areas each having a different look and feel. This way we can shoot video and can make things look a little different.

3. Our Garden Railroad has several items that were handmade by our friends. We have custom buildings, unique rolling stock and a few custom painted engines. When we run our trains we are not only thinking about the train running, but we are thinking about the special people we have met because of our involvement in Large Scale Trains.

4. I love to run my passenger train at dusk. I have an eleven car Aristo-Craft Amtrak passenger train. As the sun sets, the lights in the cars come up. To be able to run this Amtrak passenger train was the main reason I wanted to build a Garden Railroad.

5. Having a Garden Railroad allows me to get outside. After working for years inside at a desk, looking at a screen, talking with disembodied voices on the phone there is something almost spiritual about digging around in the dirt with your family and friends. It can rejuvenate the inner soul.

We went to the local nursery and got some “first plants” for our railroad. One of the reasons we went is that all the plants were 40% off and they still had a good selection.

There is still enough time to plant some plants in North Idaho so off we went. We were looking for ground cover and found a good selection and the price was right too.

More details on what each kind of plant we purchased to follow:

See All the Pictures Here

We got some cool accessories for our railroad today. Some metal telephone poles. They work great and should last forever on our railroad.

Welcome to my railroad. This is the first post of my new Garden Railroad Blog all about the new railroad I am building. Our old railroad was removed when we moved two years ago and it has taken us this long to get started again. Winter is coming and we are looking forward to running trains in the snow.