New Boston and Donnels Creek

The New Boston and Donnels Creek Railroad was built and is maintained by Paul Race, editor and principal author for the "Family Garden Trains" site, an online reference for garden railroaders and people who are thinking about being garden railroaders.

Note: I have put this site up to encourage other "ordinary" folks to take the plunge into Garden Railroading. I'm no carpenter, but I know how to move rocks and follow simple instructions. Basically, if I can do it, you can do it. If you spend some time on the site, you'll realize that I started with a very bare garden and a loop of track around a store-bought pond, and just kept adding plants and ideas until I got something fun to watch and operate in the back yard.

The first iteration was a loop of track on a bed of mulch in the side yard in the spring of 1998. But ground wasn't actually was broken until the summer of 1998, after the loss of two large trees opened up a space in the yard we didn't even "know we had."

I started with the pond, since I figured that it would be easier to build a railroad over a pond, than a pond under a railroad. The track wasn't really laid until it was too cold to play with the trains much.

Extensions and additions grew slowly, as did groundcovers at first. Now visitors seem impressed with my "green thumb," but in 1999, it looked like I was modeling the Mohave Desert. Along the way, I've made many mistakes that you won't have to make, and learned some relatively simple approaches that will make your life simpler and save you money besides. So take a tour of the past, present, and maybe future of my railroad. And when you tire of me talking about my well-planned projects that failed and my accidents that succeded, you can go back to the Family Garden Trains site to see information of a less personal nature.

Note for 2010: When I looked at this page in April, 2010, I thought it looked like I haven't done anything on my railroad in four years. But I've actually been fairly active, including two cold-weather open houses and refurbishing much of the track and roadbed. But most of the content that grew out of those pages actually wound up in other sections of the site, such as our blog-like-articles section and our primer article section. So I've added the links for those articles here, to help you get a more complete chronological sense of the New Boston and Donnels' Creek's history.

So take a look around, even if you've been here before. Also, if you're interested in seeing the New Boston and Donnels Creek (which is near Donnelsville, in Southwest Ohio), sign up for our mailing list and express an interest. You may also ask any questions you'd like and we'll try to get back to you.

Best of luck; enjoy your look around,

Paul

• About the New Boston and Donnels Creek (Overview)
• Landscaping and Pond Construction, 1998(Including Notes from 2008
• Pictures: 1998-2000
• Stress Testing on the NB&DC RR - records a June, 2000 open house in which we let about 10 6-11-year-olds run the trains all afternoon during my first daughter's graduation open house.
• 2002 Disaster - What to do When a Tree Eats Your Railroad
• June, 2002 Photos Added, May, 2003
• January, 2003 Photos Added, May, 2003
• Layout So Far - Revised, May, 2003
• June, 2003 Photos Added, June, 2006, (after we found the photos Wil Davis took in 2003)
• Motive Power Updated August, 2008
• Rolling Stock
• About the Owner
• Refurbishing Garden Railroad Roadbed - From our primer pages, a record of maintenance we had to perform on our oldest section of roadbed in 2008
• Preparations for our first Christmas Open House, 2008 - These were actually posted to our "Blog-Like-Articles" page, since I was keeping readers updated on an ongoing basis. However, I've copied the links here to contribute to the chronological record of our efforts.
  • Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 1 - A chronical of what it takes to get a railroad from virtually non-functional to "ready to show" when you're planning a Christmas-themed open house. - October 22, 08
  • Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 2 - A follow-up of Part One above. Adding lights and rehabilitating and lighting four buildings that have seen better days. It IS starting to look a lot more like Christmas.- November 1, 08
  • Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 3 - Testing track and trains, rehabilitating and lighting eight more buildings, and getting Thomas' temporary railroad started. If you "need a little Christmas, right this very minute," check out these articles, and come see us if you can. - November 2, 08
  • Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 4 - The last thirty-six hours before the open house - the family pulls together to pull it off. - November 8, 08
  • Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 5 - The open house itself and some lessons learned. - November 9, 08
• Refurbishing Garden Railroad Track - From our Primer page, a "redo" on our AristoCraft, which, fortunately has a lifetime warranty, even if the ties wear out (which they're not supposed to - December, 2009
• Fall Has Fell (2009) - and my Christmas Trains are Grateful. - Long-range planning for our Christmas-themed open house in 2009, also from our Blog-Like Article section.
• 2009 Christmas-Themed Open House on the NB&DC RailRoad - The Race family's second Christmas-themed open house included more lights, more trains, more music, and better snacks. Even if you didn't get there, we think you'll enjoy the report, the many ideas, and the many photographs.
• April, 2010: Landscaping Rehab and Idiot Tools - A "grocery list" of things I did to fix or update garden and landscaping problems that affected our railroad's appearance, functionality, and even safety. It may give you some ideas. It also serves as a reminder to do things right the first time.
• August, 2010 - Landscaping Rehab Continued A brief list of the things I got done, a little bit at a time, on the busiest and hottest summer I can remember. Tasks included backfilling new retaining walls, finishing installation of a new "waterfall" fixture, planting conifers and sedums. On the other hand, weeds are what happen when you're mucking other plants. :-)
• New December, 2010: Third Christmas-Themed Open Railroad - From our New Boston and Donnels Creek railroad, a report on our third Christmas-Themed open railroad. We were too busy this year to make many additions to our open railroad, but we did make every effort to help folks have a very good time. And over a hundred did, including many well-behaved children, some of whose families are starting to make this an annual event. Click on the photo to read more.