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Trains-N-TownsTM, the Official Newsletter of BIGIndoorTrains.com, BIGChristmasTrains.com, and HalloweenTrains.com
This newsletter is for people who like O scale, O gauge, S scale, 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, Big Christmas TrainsTM, and HalloweenTrains.comTM 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
If it seems that you haven't gotten a newsletter for months, that's because you haven't. Ironically, part of the "problem" is that we've been busy growing! Just not so you can see. Our blog-like article A Peek Behind the Scenes should fill in the gaps.
In the meantime, a two-week trip to Ireland to visit a daughter studying there gave us lots of chances to photograph and report on new and ancient aspects of railroading in Eastern Ireland. This month, we report on that trip and provide a new set of graphic resources - cleaned-up photos of typical Irish storefronts in several scales.
Part of our site rebuilding activity has forced us to revisit product listings for Bachmann and Lionel, and I am glad to report that both companies should have a very wide selection of On30 and O gauge (respectively) available for continued growth of your railroad (or for Christmas hinting, if it comes to that). As long as this kind of support continues, I believe the various hobbies supported by our "indoor trains" family of web sites will be in very good shape.
Another side benefit of "splitting out" our sites is the ability to:
- Make each site more specific and comprehensive, and
- Add features we didn't have room for before.
As an example, we are coming toward the end of a massive revision of our HalloweenTrains.com(tm) site. Anyone looking to work JUST on Halloween trains used to have a list of links across several of our web pages. We've been trying to copy everything into one place, so that HalloweenTrains.com is more of a "one stop shop," with its own primer, resource, and buyer's guide pages.
We've also started a similar upgrade for BigChristmasTrains.com(tm). It now has its own primer and resource pages for people who are specifically interested in setting up trains with their holiday villages and Christmas trees. Fans of vintage-style cardboard Christmas villages already know about CardboardChristmas.com(tm), though we have lots more stuff to move to that site when we get time.
What does this mean to fans of "year-'round" O Gauge/O27, On30 and, S gauge railroads? As cleanup of BigIndoorTrains.com(tm) continues, you should be able to find the information you need more easily as well.
In short, BigIndoorTrains.com has been supporting several separate, but related hobbies, and we're trying hard to help our readers with a more specific focus find the information they need more quickly. In the meantime, we haven't cluttered up the sites with "under construction" gifs, but we appreciate your patience, as well as any feedback you can give us on broken links, etc.
For the forseeable future, we plan to continue using our Trains-N-Towns(tm) newsletter to report on any news related to O gauge, On30, or holiday trains, as well as collectible villages. If we had six more writers churning out hobby-specific articles, we might be able to justify breaking out the newsletters as well, but we don't. :-)
Finally, please accept our wishes for a great rest of the year, including the rapidly approaching holiday season. And please especially enjoy any time you can spend with your family in these days.
Three members of the Race family recently spent several days near Dublin and in London. Though thoroughly modern and efficient in operation, Dublin's rapid transit system retains many historical artifacts that shed light on the early days of railroading in Ireland. In this Family Garden Trains(tm) article, Paul reports on those, as well as the hassles and rewards of traveling to and through Ireland and London.
To see the article and lots of photos, please click the link below.
Celtic Storefronts - Souvenir graphics you can use on your railroad or village.
While we were in Ireland, Paul took dozens of photos of buildings and textures that he plans to include on our resources pages. In this case, six building fronts from two Wicklow County towns have been cleaned up, squared up, and resized so you can print them out and use them right on your railroad or town. Though they have an Irish feel, they'd be at home in most North American settings, or even on an "Isle of Sodor" railroad.
To see the new resources, please click the link below.
Almost forty years ago, the Wicklow county (Ireland) city of Bray commissioned two young local artists to paint murals celebrating the history of railroad service to Bray. Today, the same artists are replacing the decaying paintings with beautiful mosaics - a permanent sign that the community of Bray recognizes the value of a century and a half of railroad history.
To see the article and lots of photos, please click the link below.
A year ago, articles and projects for Halloween villages and railroads were scattered across three different web sites. Most of those pages are still "out there" because Google is still pulling them up on searches. But most of the articles that Halloween train and town fans would find useful are now on a single new server, which will hopefully make their life much easier. In addition, we have expanded buyers' guides and more great project features planned between now and October.
To jump to our expanded HalloweenTrains.com page, please click the link below:
Inspired by Howard Lamey's "Spook Hill" projects, we've done our best to imagine what it would be like to live in a town where it was Halloween all year 'round. Between now and Halloween, 2012, the Spook Hill Chronicles will be published in installments, one chapter a week. So check back often for some great Halloween reading fun. Right now, our plans are to take the book chapters down a few days after Halloween and making it available as an e-reader download for a small fee. If we get a lot of response, we may "publish" a sequel next year.
To jump to the home page for Spook Hill Chronicles, please click the link below:
To answer the question, why is nothing happening on our web pages, the answer is, a lot has been happening - it's just mostly invisible, as we're repositioning our sites to last another fourteen years, at least. If nothing else, you might enjoy the opening illustration - a vinyl facade that is disguising rennovation work on a real storefront in Ireland, proof that there's even a prototype for the printed vinyl temporary storefronts on my own temporary railroads.
To see the article and lots of photos, please click the link below.
A little-known rural hobby seems to have preceded the "structures" part of modern garden railroading by over a century. Folks used to build home-made wooden houses to decorate the property. Often the houses were "models" of the farmhouse itself, and even used the same shingle material and house paint. A few were outdoor dollhouses or mailboxes, but many were just for show. Unknown amateur craftsmen, just for the fun of it, built charming structures that in many cases, have lasted decades longer than the average plastic building left outside. They also showed that structures can be great garden decorations, all by themselves.
To see the article and photos, please click the link below.
Special Announcement: - Nightmare Before Christmas Railroad Car Sellout!
Right before the biggest economic "dip" of my long lifetime, Hawthorne Village introduced their fastest-selling Halloween train collection ever - the Nightmare Before Christmas(r) train. These were limited editions and the number of "subscribers" quickly outnumbered the available issues. In fact, the Nightmare Before Christmas trains were so popular, that Hawthorne village ordered several "followup" cars. Then the unthinkable happened - an economic recession hit, and many of their customers were forced to cancel their subscriptions after receiving the first 4 "issues." It was too late to cancel the order for the "add-on" cars, so earlier this year, Hawthorne Village received a shipment of these unique, museum-quality collectibles, without enough subscribers left to absorb them all.
 We are still getting requests to track down the entire Nightmare Before Christmas collection for people who missed out on the original subscription, but that "ship has sailed." Nevertheless, if you ever want to get your hands on some of the cleverest and most unique Halloween train cars ever made, go to On30 Halloween Trains page right now and get your order in. Most of these cars are already in very short supply so don't wait too long. As I've said in other contexts, I've never heard back from someone who's disappointed with Hawthorne Village's products or services, but I've gotten many, many contacts from people who waited a day to long to order a "limited edition" item. Click the following link for details.
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 season!
Paul Race
BigIndoorTrains.com(tm)
BigChristmasTrains.com(tm)
HalloweenTrains.com(tm)
FamilyGardenTrains.com(tm)
To view the Trains-N-TownsTM newsletter for December, 2011, click on the following link:
http://bigindoortrains.com/trains_n_towns/11_12_newsletter_indoor.htm
To read more, or to look at recommended Indoor or Garden Railroading products, you may click on the index pages below.
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Report: Planes, Trains, and Double-Deckers - Mass Transit and RR History in Dublin and London
Report: Bray Station Mosaics
HalloweenTrains.com(tm) Expansion
New for 2012! Spook Hill Chronicles - A Family-Friendly Halloween Novel Just For Our Readers
A Peek Behind the Scenes
Backyard Folk-Art Houses