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Trains-N-TownsTM, the Official Newsletter of BIGIndoorTrains.com and BIGChristmasTrains.com
This newsletter is for people who like O scale trains and Christmas trains, including people who combine On30 or O gauge trains with collectible villages. It is produced in conjunction with the Big Indoor TrainsTM and Big Christmas Trains web sites.
- If you did not get this Trains-N-TownsTM newsletter through your own e-mail, and you would like to get the newsletters in the future, please join our Trains-N-TownsTM Mailing List
- On the other hand, if you don't want to receive our e-mail updates, please e-mail me with a "Please Unsubscribe" message (worded any way you wish), and we will graciously remove you from our list.
- Also, if you would like to subscribe to our free newsletter for garden railroaders (people running big trains outside), please join the Family Garden Trains Mailing List. By the way, you can subscribe to either, both, or neither, and we will just be glad to be of service, no matter what you decide.
In this Issue
Welcome to all new members. We are still signing more folks up for this newsletter all the time, which we take to mean that the hobby niches we serve are still showing healthy growth. At the same time, most of the projects we are presenting are both very inexpensive and very impressive, once you have them done, proving you don't need a second income to support your hobby.
We did break down and insert mention of a once-a-year collectible village and accessory sale that many of our readers enjoy - hope it doesn't lead you into too much "temptation."
As I have mentioned many times recently, we are still getting great articles and article ideas from our readers. To help our readers, and, frankly, any hobbyists with ideas worth sharing, we have published a series of articles on how to write "how-to" hobby articles, whatever your hobby.
Topics discussed in this update include:
Note: As always, we have more articles in the works, so check our site often.
Our Big Indoor TrainsTM' "Tribute To Tin" series keeps growing with this new addition, inspired by a popular pre-war tinplate house made to go with standard gauge trains. Our own commercial-quality graphics and instructions, as well as Howard Lamey's plans and assembly details are all free, to give your railroad a vintage tinplate look with a few cents' worth of materials. Many options for O and S scale versions of the graphic and plans can be downloaded directly from the article. If you want graphics for a larger scale, please decide which version you want and Contact Us directly - the Large Scale/Standard Scale versions are too large to store on our web page.
Click on the link below for more information:
A fan of Howard Lamey's LittleGlitterhouses.com site has sent us an example of a unique project. Her "Adirondack" house came after she had made several traditional glitterhouses and wanted to try modeling a real building. This article shows what a little self-confidence can do for you.
Rod is an Australian whose job has brought him to the vast wilderness of Rhode Island for a time. He moved north just as he was starting to get interested in Garden Railroading. Though he doesn't have room or time to set up an outdoor railroad here, he took this project on to "keep his hand in." It's an indoor display bridge that can be moved outside when the time comes. This uses the basic principles explained in our Trestles 101 article, but adds additional details such as a water barrel platform.
Click on the link below for more information:
Rod is just one of many folks who've contributed articles to our sites as his way of "giving back" to a hobby and a resource that has given him many hours of entertainment. At the same time, some of my friends who run other hobby web site have been wishing they had more good articles coming their way. So, our "business" site, Breakthrough CommunicationsTM, has posted a series of article to help ANY hobbyist in nearly any hobby start sharing their project ideas with their fellow readers.
I hope to add more articles about writing, graphics, and publishing in the next several months, but these should get you started. Of course I like it when folks send me articles, but if you're benefiting from some other resource(s), and you want to "give back" to them as well, these articles will give you a great start either way.
The articles include:
To see the first article in the series, with links to the rest, please click on the following link:
Here's a followup to one topic we discussed in our Blog-Like article "Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain" - the use of "Trompe d'Oeil" techniques to add depth to set pieces and other flat objects. This time we describe how we created the three-dimensional looking graphics for the tin-style cottage above and for many projects to come. Yes, we probably shouldn't give away all of our "secrets," but it's so much fun to share creative ideas with other people.
Click the following link for more information:
Halloween Train Alert!
If you're thinking about setting up an indoor Halloween railroad this year, you might like to know that
 Our sister site Big Indoor Trains has a growing number of inexpensive, but charming Halloween-themed structure and accessory projects for indoor railroads, and several more planned for 2009. All "Spook Hill" projects are designed by "glitterhouse" desiger Howard Lamey to be family-friendly, unique, and potentially heirloom quality. This is a reminder to check out our free, downloadable plans and instructions, and get an early start on eerie fun for this fall.
 Many charming On30 Halloween-themed trains are available, to delight railfans and Halloween lovers alike.
On30 trains are in about the same scale as Lionel trains, but they run on HO track, and they look great with holiday villages. The Hawthorne Village On30 collectible Halloween trains feature characters from all your favorite Halloween movies, as well as a 1-year satisfaction warranty and a lifetime mechanical warranty.
 Why think about this in July? Two reasons: 1: It's not too early to start your fall projects - once you build a couple, you'll wish you had more time. And 2: The On30 Halloween trains are subscription trains - you get one piece about every four weeks, starting with the locomotive. If you start your subscription now, you should have enough of the train to run by early October, and the rest of it by Halloween. And these are quality products, with a one-year money-back satisfaction guarantee from Collectibles Today and a lifetime mechanical warranty from Bachmann Trains. Plan ahead now for a frighteningly good time this October.
Click on the following link to learn more about On30 Halloween Trains.
Click on the following link to learn more about BigIndoorTrains.com's Spook Hill collection of Halloween-themed structure and accessory projects.
Each year Collectibles Today, who distributes Hawthorne Village trains and many other collectible products that we display and recommend for indoor railroads and holiday villages, has a 1-week sale in which limited-edition collectibles which are no longer in production are offered at 30%, 50%, and even 70% off.
We've put together a page listing our favorite items from this sale and provides a link to the entire list.
The sale starts July 17 and ends July 23. Don't wait until the last day to order, though! Last year almost everything we recommended to our readers sold out within a matter of hours.
Click the following link A.S.A.P. to see more information about this sale, including shortcuts to our favorite products and a link to see all of the products that are included.
Some of you know my "dark secret," that between, say 1968 and 2000, my "avocation" was not Model Railroading, but songwriting. I've done relatively few concerts in the last several years, but I still have my guitars and a lot of good songs left over from "simpler times" (although they didn't seem simple at the time, now that I think about it).
A few months ago, I made one of my old project-studio recordings available to readers of one newsletter, and the response was generally very positive. So, unless there is public outcry, I'll be listing a "Song of the Month" here every month. Clicking on the link below is totally optional, of course, but if you don't click on it before the next newsletter comes out, you may miss something you might have enjoyed. This month's "Song of the Month," "Ironies of Life" gives an aging Baby Boomer's humorous "take" on the way life resets our expectations for us.
To jump right to the recording, click the following link:
To jump to the "Song of the Month" section of my music page, with links to this and other songs, please click the following link:
Keep in Touch
Each month, we get more interest in this newsletter, in the site, and in the trains and towns we discuss. We welcome your questions as indicators of what we should be working on next (also, we always try to answer reader questions quickly). In addition, if you have any photos, tips, or articles you'd like to share with your fellow hobbyists, please let us know. The hobby grows best when we all learn together.
In the meantime, please accept our very best wishes for a great summer!
Paul Race
BigIndoorTrains.com
BigChristmasTrains.com
FamilyGardenTrains.com
To view the Trains-N-TownsTM newsletter for June, 2009, click on the following link:
http://bigindoortrains.com/trains_n_towns/09_06_newsletter_indoor.htm
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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New Article: Building a Vintage Tin-Style Cottage
New Article: Susan Yasinsky's Adirondack Glitterhouse
New Article: Rod Horsburgh's Windowsill Trestle
New Article: How (and Why) to Write "How To" Hobby Articles
New "Blog-Like" Article: More About "3-D" Painting Tricks
One-Week Collectibles Sale! Up to 70% off Dept. 56, Thomas Kinkade, NASCAR, more.
Song of the Month: Ironies of Life