Trains-N-Towns<sup><small>TM</small></sup>


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Written by Paul D. Race for Big Indoor Trains^TM and Big Christmas Trains^TM

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Trains-N-Towns^TM, 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 Trains^TM, Big Christmas Trains^TM, and HalloweenTrains.com^TM web sites.

If you did not get this Trains-N-Towns^TM newsletter through your own e-mail, and you would like to get the newsletters in the future, please join our Trains-N-Towns^TM 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.
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.
Finally, if you would like to subscribe to our free newsletter about Christmas traditions, please join our Christmas Times^TM Mailing List.

In this Issue

If you were on the mailing list in December, you got our most recent newsletter. Yes, there's been another gap. We moved just before Thanksgiving, 2017, and a lot of stuff came over willy-nilly, unsorted. Plus we moved into a property that had been neglected in some ways, and which has taken a while to get under any kind of control. So we've been quite busy painting rooms indoors, landscaping outdoors, and more. The more we get things under control, the more it feels like "home," so that's a good thing. But it means that hobbies, per se, have gotten pushed aside for the most part.

Here's one positive that comes out of this - the new property includes an oversized garage that may give me room to have an S gauge and/or O gauge railroad for the first time since the 1970s. Though I've always been an American Flyer fan, I have also accumulated a few O27 pieces, and it would be fun to have those running somewhere as well. Nothing huge, you understand. And maybe next year, after I get my garden railroad started again, I may investigate setting out loops of weather-resistant tracks for O and S gauge trains as well. One thing's for sure; even with the new S gauge stuff costing as much as it does, it's still a lot less than the Large Scale stuff I brought over from the other house.

By the way, except for figures and (some) door heights, most Christmas villages look better with S gauge trains than they do with O or HO. Plus the overall size of most "O scale" structures is more suited to S scale trains as well. I know I won't make any converts from die-hard O gauge or HO fans. And there isn't exactly a wide range of products (even if you count in American Models' quality trains). But if you're up for a challenge or just always wondered whether S gauge was worth looking into, you may enjoy this article. Actually, it's so big, we should have made it into two articles, so don't be disappointed that our table of contents seems small this month.

We also have a link to an article from our sister site FamilyGardenTrains.com. It's the first of a series of articles about Large Scale train manufacturers who have come and gone. If you've ever seen any of these products and wondered about them and their history, this is a good place to start.

Topics discussed in this update include:

S Gauge Revisited - Having room to set up a small S gauge railroad forty years after the trains went into a box brought up some great memories, and gave me a chance to look at a current offering.
Fallen Flags of Garden Railroading - Large Scale train manufacturers who helped advance the garden railroading hobby and whose efforts we still appreciate - and run.

S Gauge Revisited

Between 1957 and 1970, my father and I ran a large S gauge railroad - one of the few interests we shared. Eventually, though, the trains went into a box and - since I never had a place to set them up again - most of them went to a collector friend a few years later. Fast forward to 2016, when Shelia and I bought a house with an oversized garage - room to set up at least an oval of track. If nothing else, it's a reason to reminisce about the good times that Dad and I once shared, and to look at what has happened in S scale since I was trying to build my empire back in the 1960s.

Plus there's a very brief comparison between the vintage American Flyer passenger trains and the S gauge Polar Express that Lionel built in 2013.

To read the whole thing, click the following link:

https://bigindoortrains.com/primer/s_gauge/s_gauge_revisited/s_gauge_revisited.htm

Fallen Flags of Garden Railroading

Fifty years after LGB reinvigorated the garden railroading hobby in North America, a number of other brands have come and gone, including several that left a permanent mark on the hobby. We hope to be addressing these more or less in chronological order, starting with Kalamazoo, one of the first manufacturers in modern times to create garden trains that looked like they belonged in North America.

Click on the following link to see our introductory article about the "fallen flags" of garden railroading.

https://familygardentrains.com/primer/rolling_stock/fallen_flags/fallen_flags_index.htm

Click on the following link to see our article about Kalamazoo trains.

https://familygardentrains.com/primer/rolling_stock/fallen_flags/kalamazoo/fallen_flags_kalamazoo.htm

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. All of the hobbies we report on grow best when we all learn together.

In the meantime, please accept our very best wishes for a great and holiday season!

Paul Race

BigIndoorTrains.com(tm)
BigChristmasTrains.com(tm)
HalloweenTrains.com(tm)
FamilyGardenTrains.com(tm)

To view the Trains-N-Towns^TM newsletter for December, 2016, click on the following link:

To read more, or to look at recommended Indoor or Garden Railroading products, you may click on the index pages below.

http://bigindoortrains.com/trains_n_towns/16_12_newsletter_indoor.htm

Visit our BIG Train Store<sup><small>TM</small></sup> Buyer's Guide Pages

Note: Family Garden Trains^TM, Big Christmas Trains^TM, Big Indoor Trains^TM, Big Train Store^TM, and Trains-N-Towns^TM are trademarks of Breakthrough Communications^TM (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, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 by Paul D. Race. Reuse or republication without prior written permission is specifically forbidden.
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