Anyone Done A Garden Railway?

Following on from the lamentation being expressed in the thread in Community about the demise of real model railroading where I commented if I won the lottery or football pools I might think about building a railway around the garden. Got me thinking, has anyone tackled this in TMR or even TANE yet? Do we have resources to represent it - i.e. giant size house, grass blades, the equivalent of 30m high rose bushes and a large cat idly contemplating whether to flick the train off the track!

Wouldn't have to worry about shadows either...

I carried out a few experiments along these lines (no pun intended!), if I remember correctly in 1:22 scale, although I would have to check as they are on a different computer. This was in TS10 and I created the illusion by taking some of my own creations and enlarging them appropriately. I believe they included semi-detached cottages, a garden wall, a shed, a paved patio, and a raised track bed bordered by a low edging of upright logs. There were also a couple of topiary shrubs in pots. For the models, of course, normal Trainz track, locos and rolling stock. For plants around the lawn I used bushes or trees pulled down into the ground so that only a limited amount showed. This was an experiment, just a few evenings work, and nothing was ever published but it was quite easy, using GMax, to enlarge models by 2200% - no alteration to the original artwork was needed. Of course it would need a lot of work by a number of people to provide a good range of overscale models if this idea proved popular.

I look forward to seeing if there is any wider interest.

By the way, I've also experimented in N and (British) 0 gauges - not yet in S gauge, though.

Ray

That's an interesting idea Vern. I had a friend who had a garden railway here in sunny California. I modified some of his locos for radio control.
I would say, however, that regular Trainz locos and rolling stock would not look right. To get the look of a garden railway they would need to be modified somewhat.
Cheers,
Mick

I've retrieved my experiments so here are a few screenshots:







Remember, they were only experiments. Sorry, the log edging seems to have been stolen ...

Ray

Once started to model the RoundHouse Park in Toronto. With the miniature railway fullsize, everything else had to be upscaled to maintain the correct visual effect. Didn't get much beyond a few basic buildings. Just too many objects to do to keep up the illusion. If ever the DLS gets a full set of objects, might give it anofher go, but considering all the diferent possible scales and even a small subset might be too much.

Will stay in the 1:1 scale for now

Another experiment was 1:12 scale buildings to create a model village in a normal full size Trainz route: some of my buildings reduced and being viewed by full size visitors. Again quite easy to do and OK for a tourist attraction. No screenshots available.

Ray