Building My G Scale Garden Railway: June 2024 Ipdate

It's been a long time since I gave an update on my layout. Honestly, there hasn't been much progress or change since July of 2023. However, I had a brief spare moment and thought I would make this quick video where I gripe about some maintenance issues, some things I wish I had done differently and also the joys of watching my kid enjoy the layout.
Chapters:
00:45 Inner Loop Needs Maintenance
02:07 Rail Clamps Revisited
03:56 Dirt, Gravel and Landscape Fabric
07:05 New Stuff: Engines and Rolling Stock
08:28 New Stuff: Pola Buildings
09:46 Closing Thoughts
11:35 Credits

[@valsventures8795]

Perhaps something as simple as a shop vac could swoop the dirt but leave the most of the gravel, then add more ballast. I used to just dump ballast & sweep it without ever lifting the tracks.

[@johnstup4479]

I feel your pain. I built my garden railroad in the summer of 2020. It was a single loop and had it running by fall. 2021 came along and I had an indoor project that took my whole summer and along with that, no maintenance on the garden. With other things going on since then, the garden is overrun with weeds. Weed fabric did not work at all. The mulch is a mess everywhere. The bridges are all pushed up due to freeze/thaw of winters. It's a mess! And this summer, a kiddy pool is going in for just this summer for the kids. I've come up with a new plan of attack for next year that will address the bridges, the weeds, and the overgrown bushes. I am going with the 3/8 rock and will be getting rid of the mulch. Definitely using a thicker material at least under the track to be rid of weed growth. It's been a huge learning experience. Watching your videos has given me the motivation to tackle my garden layout and make it beautiful again. Really enjoy watching your layout in action!

[@ShadowVFX]

Thank you for your story. It definitely does require a lot of maintenance, doesn't it? It makes me happy to know someone has enjoyed watching my videos. Best of luck with your renovation on your layout!

[@BoxcarJerry]

I like your layout design . Have you thought about doing deadrail ? I am starting to plan a layout and will use deadrail on it.

[@ShadowVFX]

I sure have. The main reasons I haven't done it are the costs, and the time it takes to convert the locomotives.
The dead rail systems I would like to use is Blunami, and a single decoder for 1 locomotive costs $200. That's almost half what I paid for some of my locomotives and almost on-par with how much I paid for some of the second hand USA train locomotive I own. I have about a dozen locomotives and that would be extremely expensive to buy decoders for all of them.
That leads me to the second issue: Time. You hear me talk about it a lot and all my videos, but being a dad of two young kids, one of which is special needs, means I have very little free time. It takes a few hours to do a proper job of getting a locomotive and putting one of these decoders in there. Multiply that times 12 locomotives and that is a couple days worth of work at least. And that's ignoring the financial cost I already mentioned.
If I were just starting out in this hobby and didn't own a single locomotive yet, I surely would just go Blunami with battery. But having a legacy collection makes that a much harder transition.

[@rascallhunter]

Get pea gravel or 3/8” rock, not 3/8” minus. The “minus” denotes fines, which is what you are seeing on the surface now.