© 7/8" Scale Railway Guild                                                                                                  Page 3 

Lix's Lessons - Continued
Here are some notes on my progress so far:
It seems to be as much the lay of the line as the size of the rail and ties that is important. What sometimes gets bandied about with my friends is the idea that less is more. I do think one can ruin a scene by putting too much into it. So the winding track receding into the countryside is thought of as high-level stuff. This is because the most mileage of any line was going from one place to another, a single line through the countryside with some flag stops and industry along the way was common. Indoor model railway concepts are just as successful in the garden.

Our victims are not expecting such skullduggery in a peaceful garden, and are lulled into a false sense of security! We can therefore use the view-block as our own, it is quite successful and can be as simple as a bush or ornamental shrub which the inside guys can't use. So if the railway line passes among different scenes along the way, the mind has a different thought process about it and says, "Wow, a real railway! That, is our goal!" Each scene can be thought of as a separate track that was rebuilt completely with smaller brass and steel rails. Not only did I re-lay the whole thing, but, I thought long and hard about photo locations and sunlight angles. Even the curves were planned so that some allow views to be followed down the line while others were blocked. This is what will allow the mind to form an opinion, however fleeting, that the railway is a real one. The idea of allowing, or blocking, views, is one used by garden designers throughout time. We should learn from them, not only for our scenes along our little railways, but as to the laying out of our gardens as well. I have taken the garden as a garden angle quite a ways along. I first thought of the thing as a model railway done outside and was chagrined to find it all quite flat and uninteresting when viewed overall. The planting of larger garden plants right on the raised bed was deemed a success and is stock

play now. So, as years go by, the evolution of the garden and its incumbent little railways are constantly being refined. It is not quite enough to just run trains about the garden, the pleasure of having visitors come over and marvel at the things done is great! My neighbors bring their friends and families over to show them the whole thing. That begets enthusiasm for me, and acceptance of the idea from my own family. But it is a net improvement, so that is the tack and approach that I would encourage you to use when negotiating for right of way. "Honey, think of how nice the garden will look after this next extension!"

I do not encourage you to build cities without end, huge bridges and the biggest yet built of any one thing, but it seems and is quite true that the mundane in track and roadbed formation was far more the norm, than the huge, costly projects. If these mundane everyday things are done well and done with an eye toward fooling the minds, we have indeed come a long way towards that better and higher level art form that garden railways can certainly be!

Charlie Lix

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