Yard as in back yard. This is what I love about the Garden Railway crew, a huge mainline run through natural scenery.
If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they breed tiny flies? Nothing worse than bug splat on the windshield that's not to scale.
It's not the bugs you gotta worry about, it's the cats and birds. One guy in Australia had Cockatoos stealing his trains off the track!
Depends on the cat. When I was a kid, we had a cat (more likely, the cat had us ). The first time I ran a train on my little layout in his majesty's presence, it perked up its ears looked around nervously, and when that old Cox GP35 came out of the short tunnel, growling like an epileptic coffee grinder and into the cat's view, it got up, arched its back, hissed, and scrammed out of my room at about Warp 9.5. From then on, it never stuck around when I was playing with my trains.
I wish my kitten was like that. My older cats both know that the tree and trains are off limits. Water or airsoft quickly follows a paw on a train around my house. But this kitten we got last summer refuses to learn that the trains are off limits. Funny thing is when the older cats notice the kitten stalking the train they get out of the room. I dont think they realize that I wont squirt them if they are not around the train, they just know someone is getting squirted.
I did that to a cat once. I wound up stripping the track off the table and tipping it into a dumpster. I got sick of the ammonia smell.
I’d love to move back into the house we lived in, about 40 years ago!! Nice big yard, both front and back! Close to a 2 1/2 car garage!! Could use part of the garage space as indoor storage for my trains!! Using a proper size dog door to access the rest of the railroad outside!! I’ve stated before, I guess I’m lucky to be able to have built what I have in the space available!! And that my folks approved of the project!! And even help out a bit as needed. Mom grows the plants, I grow the trains! Dad isn’t really involved, but Mom and I do ask his thoughts and opinions on things.
Cockatoos can be a pain in the butt ....... then again, in Australia we have bigger problems. It will give you a nasty bite and it has claws soooooooooo sharp it can easily climb right to the top of any tree it feels like.
Maybe you need to run a big V-plow on all your trains. Of course, you probably would not want to derail near one of those.
In a thick Aussie accent, and with appropriate headgear, point at the cowcatcher and say "You call that a cowcatcher? Now this is a cowcatcher!" and pull out one of those plows.
I'm told it's a Lace Monitor , a type of Goanna. They don't like being handled and can bite leaving nasty wounds. Unlikely to take off fingers but will require a trip to hospital. Goannas don't care what they eat and can happily eat dead / decaying animals so the risk of infection and disease is there. Generally if anyone handles one like this wearing welders gloves is a good idea. Having a broom or shovel to shoo them away is a good idea.
