Ernie's Billboards

Ernie Packard has made a total of six billboards (red, white and blue) to present the logo's of our sponsors at the Fryeburg Home and Garden Show next month!

Thanks Ernie, they look Good!

This is what I've been working on

The backyard flower/water garden is taking shape. I can see track circling around the flowers and fountain and connecting back to the indoor line. I am looking out a bay window directly over the basement window that the track will connect to. It looks longer than the 35 ft distance from the house. If you look close you see two turkeys sneaking up on Jameson catching his first frog of the year.

First Run

With little maintenance and one sag repaired, the White Anchor & Quarry RR made its' first run of the new season, Sunday, the 20th just one day after the snow had melted. Members of the Mainely Trains O gauge club, who were up visiting, were impressed. We may have some new members. Plan on bringing some of them to Carl's on May 3rd. That should be interesting.

Pine State Railroad is running

In the back ground you will see we still have snow and the water is running down the hill toward the garden. The garden is high and dry and the train is running.

SCGRR up-date, 4/19/2008

Here are a couple more pictures of the latest progress.

Some mulch added and some buildings. Buildings closest to the foreground are scratch-built, the ones in the rear are pre-built.


The church is from "Aristocraft" and the School house and small white house are bird feeders from either Lowe's or Walmart. A passenger station is "In-the-works" and will be located next to the passenger platform. Still waiting for plants to come up near stone wall so they can be re-located.

Dwarf Hosta for Garden railroads

If anyone is interested in Dwarf Hostas for their Garden / Garden Railroad, check out http://www.nhhostas.com/. they have some beautiful stuff. My wife and I just bought some. They are located in South Hampton, NH. Close to Seabrook.

PS: It's still a little too early to plant them, (Hopefully by mid May the threat for harming frost will be gone.)


These will give you some idea of their plants.



This one is Called "Mouse Ears"

Update of SCGRR progress

Landscape fabric laid and track ballasted.

An Honorable CP rail GP-38 relegated to track testing and inspection. The Heinz Refer, since it's at the end of the Train has the obligatory "FRED". I couldn't time the shutter on the camera to coincide with the flashing red light "ON".
More testing and inspection at the far end of the loop. No, that isn't as much of a grade as the camera makes out. Max grade is <2>

Here she comes on the home leg of testing. Several minor adjustments needed to be made, especially at the switches. They were lower by a little than either the inlet track or the outgoing track. The Gp scraped it's steps. Again, the grade appears far worse that actual.
My Engines are run via Battery power. The "USA Trains" CP Rail GP-38 is set up with "Airwire" control and two 7.2volt 6cell NiMH batteries in series to get 14.4v, located under the Dynamic brake housing.

The "Aristocraft" "Rio-Grande" U-25B that I have is set up with "Crest Train Engineer" and a single 21.5volt Crest Lithium battery located On-board the engine. Also the U-25B is equipped with Phoenix U-25B sound. The sound is expensive, but it really makes the engine.

Next time I'll try smaller pictures.

Welcome Jeff from Holden and Ed from Kittery

Two new bloggers join! Welcome railroaders glad to have you aboard!

See more

a nursery website

recieved a catalog in the mail from honey creek nurseries. it is a division of burpee seeds . it has a lot of stuff we can use in our train gardens.

prices seem good.
http://www.honeycreeknurseries.com/index.asp

New Member and New layout started

We are new to MGRS and new to Garden Railroading. Also new to Bloging. This is test to see if I got it.



Our Layout beginnings are located at the "Photo Gallery".

New member, SCGRR

We are new to MGRS and to Garden Railroading. Our layout's beginings pictures are located at "Photo Gallery", under SCGRR. It isn't much, but it's a start.

Good luck to ALL members with their Layouts.

Fryeburg Home Garden & Flower Show - List of Exhibitors and Map

List of Exhibitors - click here

You can also click on Exhibit Map to enlarge it and see where we will be.
(From the video/article that Brenda posted)

Blog Alert! Mardens - Hobby Store Items Sale

My daughter just told me that Mardens in Portland has a lot of Train related items at half price. Not sure if any G scale. But definitely worth a look.

Railroad tracks

Railroad tracks. This is fascinating.Be sure to read the final paragraph; your understanding of it will depend on the earlier part of the content.The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first longdistance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for anImperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.So the next time you are handed a Specification/Procedure/Process andwonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may be exactly right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.) Now, the twist to the story:When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are made by Thiokol at theirfactory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB's would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB's had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and therailroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand yearsago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?

Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.

CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else.

Hi Barry Thanks for Joing!

That is what we need. Hope you Enjoy!

They keep changing - New MGRS Reefer designs

See the latest, click below
MGRS Reefer Cars - Potential Designs

MGRS is doing a lot of new things. Maybe we need some 'Commemorative' Cars. DownEast Magazine, Fryeburg Fairgrounds, Board of Directors, Web Sites, Blogs, Sponsors. But, who needs a reason, they are just fun to design. Right now these are just computer designs, but with a little luck some may become a reality. Based upon your comments and suggestions, they keep changing.

A ride on the Littleville Falls R.R.

I got this idea from "The Deere's" video and thought it would be fun to try and record a ride on my indoor layout in North Yarmouth.

Want to join the blog the easy way!

If you want to be able to add new blog posts or 'new items' on the blog you have to be an author.
If you want to become an author, just tell me!

All you have to be is a member in good standing of MGRS. I need your email address. So please send an email to mgrsmember@gmail.com and say what 'blogger name' you would like to use. I am sorry, but you have to copy the above address and paste it into your email to send it.

I will set up your username and password to be able to post on the blog and send you back the information.
Send me an email today and remember let me know your choice of Blogger name.
Thanks, John