Garden railway

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A garden railway or garden railroad is a model railway system set up outdoors in a garden. G Scale is the most popular scale for garden railroads, though 16 mm scale also has a following, especially in the United Kingdom. Model locomotives in this scale are often live steam scale models of British narrow gauge prototypes. 16 mm scale (which runs on 32 mm / 1.26 in) track, the same gauge as O gauge is probably now more popular in the UK than G scale.

A garden railway's scale is usually in the range of 1/32 (Gauge 1) to 1/12 (1:12), running on either 45 mm (1.772 in) or 32 mm (1.26 in) gauge track. 1/32 scale (1:32) is also called "three-eighths scale" meaning 3/8 of an inch on the model represents one foot on the real thing. For similar reasons, 1/24 scale (1:24) is also called "half-inch scale". Other popular scales are 1:29, 1:20.3 (representing 3 ft (914 mm) gauge prototypes on 45 mm (1.772 in) track, 16 mm (1:19). They are smaller than the Backyard railroad, or what is commonly called a miniature railway, and would not provide a ride-on facility, being intended instead as a display railway. Smaller scales and gauges are used in the garden, but in general garden railway is used to refer to the medium scale sizes which would be impractical to use indoors.

• Rail transport modelling scales
• Backyard railroad
• Ridable miniature railways
• Children's railway

• Freezer, C.J. (1995). The Garden Railway Manual. Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1852604654.
• Jones, Peter (15 December 2006). Practical Garden Railways. The Crowood Press. ISBN 1861268335.
• Wilson, Brian. Steam trains in your garden. Australian Model Engineering Pty Ltd.

• Media related to Images of garden railways at Wikimedia Commons
• Large Scale Central
• Garden Railways Magazine
• DCCWiki article on Garden Railroads with links to using DCC in the garden.