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| Written by Paul D. Race for Big Indoor TrainsTM and Big Christmas TrainsTM |
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Trains-N-TownsTM, the Official Newsletter of BIGIndoorTrains.com and BIGChristmasTrains.comThis newsletter targets people who like Christmas trains, especially those who are interested in combining On30 or O gauge trains with ceramic collectible villages. We are using this format because we discovered that lots of folks who started out using trains during the holidays were leaving them set up most or all of the year.We also realized that there were few resource for people who got into the hobby this way. So we've started Big Indoor TrainsTM web site and the Trains-N-TownsTM newsletter to help non-railroaders who suddenly find themselves running and liking O scale and larger trains. Our "mailing list" for this newsletter is based on people who were been getting its predecessor, the BIG Christmas TrainsTM newsletter. We hope you find this newsletter helpful, and if you don't, let us know what you'd like to see - that's how we learn and grow.
Topics discussed in this update include:
 New Trains and Towns for 2007One reason we haven't gotten more done is that so many new trains and towns have become available that it is almost impossible for us to keep up just with the listings.There are five brand new listings on our Halloween Trains page alone, including
Note: All of the sets above, except for the Lionel® Hogwarts Express® are "subscription" sets, which means that after you order the first item, you get then next item (and you get billed for it) about a month later. So if you order now, you'll only have one or two pieces by Halloween. But you'll be guaranteed to get the rest of the set. And the first issue of any of these sets is always an excellent value. Also, the Lionel Hogwarts Express train set (the only one listed above that is not a subscription set) is remarkable for a Lionel train. It is the first time Lionel has ever made a serious model of a European train. This is a 3-rail O gauge model of the real "Hall"-style British ten-wheeler locomotive that they painted scarlet for the Harry Potter movie. It will be in extremely short supply between now and February, 2008, so if you would like one of these around your Halloween village or Christmas tree, get your order in soon.
Click here to see the Easy Homemade Trees article. October Tip: Autumn Leaves to Make Your Town or Railroad Look SeasonalMost model railroads represent trains in summer, so there aren't as many accessories to make your town or railroad look like it is representing a community in autumn. Of course Hawthorne Village has mitigated that by having trains and towns both that "look like fall" (check out the Halloween Trains page if you want to see what I mean). But what if you want the setting (or base) for your trains and towns to "look like fall," too?
Last summer, I spent some time shopping for autumn-colored leaf-shaped confetti a person could dump on a village or railroad to give an autumn look. But the only stuff I could find was sparkly or shiny, which I didn't want. Then a week ago, Shelia brought a leaf-shaped hole-punch home from Target that she had bought for a dollar. (She said there was another one with a more traditional "leaf shape," too; we may get that later.) The leaves are not much more than 1/4" across, which makes them 8" across compared to most holiday village people (which tend to be 1:32 in scale). So they're a little "out of scale" for most holiday village houses (which tend to be 1:48 in scale), but they're still small enough and have enough detail to look okay in a pile. These punches are made to survive light use with light card stock. Shelia tells me that you are supposed to punch holes in the paper so the background shows through, and the little leaf-shaped punchouts are just a "by-product." But I'm interested in the leaf-shaped punchouts. I plan to sprinkle them around my holiday village to give an autumn feelings. In some cases, I may even be able to camouflage the white globs on the roof of my "winter" buildings. You don't need card stock to represent leaves on your holiday village, and you don't need to buy three packs of colored construction paper, either. I went to Staples and bought some red, orange, and yellow copy paper from their quick-printing center, for about .08 each. Besides being cheap, this 20-24lb stock is easier to punch than the 40 or 60lb stock that the punch is made to use, which means:
My halloween project isn't quite finished, so photos will have to wait, but I hope soon to have enough leaves to dump on my village base to give it an autumn look. And the cost of the whole leaf project is less than $2 ( or under $3 if I get the other stamp.) Of course, if you don't have a Target or other source of inexpensive leaf-shaped punches, you may wind up getting yours at a stampbooking place for $9. In that case, you have to reexamine whether the project is worth it to you. I expect the leaves to be dusty and unreusable by the end of Thansgiving, so my plan is to pitch them at the end of the season and make more next year. On the other hand, if you wanted to have a permanent base just for autumn, there's no reason you couldn't glue them down and seal them with a clear acrylic. As always, your mileage will vary. Please let us know if you think of another use for these things, or if you have a photo you'd like to share. Keep in TouchWe always try to answer reader questions quickly. Also many reader questions (and their answers) apply to other readers as well. That's why we keep adding entries to our "Letters to the Editor" pages. You may find some interesting and helpful reading there.
Paul Race To view the newsletter for June, 2006, our first issue of the Trains-N-TownsTM newsletter, click on the following link: http://bigindoortrains.com/trains_n_towns/07_06_newsletter_indoor.htm#new_article_ To read more, or to look at recommended Garden Railroading and Display Railroad products, you may click on the index pages below.
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Note: Big Indoor TrainsTM, Big Train StoreTM Family Garden TrainsTM, Big Christmas TrainsTM, and Garden Train StoreTM are trademarks of Breakthrough CommunicationsTM (www.btcomm.com). All information, data, text, and illustrations on this web site are Copyright (c) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 by Paul D. Race.
Reuse or republication without prior written permission is specifically
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