In 1996, my New Media instructor liked to joke that there are only 12 pages on the Web, and the rest are just links to everything else. In the spirit of that, here are links to other train-related sites, in no particular order.

Personal pages

Joseph Rampolla. Joe does some great things with animation, small layouts, and offbeat whimsical themed layouts, including some great stuff featuring Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang. I don’t think there’s much of anything conventional about how Joe sets up and runs his trains, and the world is better for it.

All Gauge Page. Thor Sheil offers lots of track plans, advice for setting up buildings and figures, and tons of other great information.

Girard and Oak Park Railroad. Richard Getty is a former HO modeler who switched to tinplate operation with Marx trains in 2001. When he and I agree, it’s probably because I stole the idea from him.

Marx Tinplate Trains. William Eric McFadden has a nice collection of links and tips for Marx trains.

Yahoo Groups

Discussions on train-related forums at times can get heated. I like the Yahoo groups because conversations tend to be very civil, and the people tend to be extremely helpful.

MarxTrain. This helpful, large, and knowledgeable group is dedicated to Marx trains. Founded in 1999, it now boasts more than 1100 members.

Tin Scale Scenery. This group discusses scenery with more of an emphasis on whimsy, fun, and toy-like nature rather than pure scale realism.

standg. This group is dedicated to Standard Gauge trains, but much of the information applies to tinplate O gauge trains too.

Prewar O Gauge Trains. Dedicated to all makes of prewar O gauge trains.

Other Forums

The Gauge. A large, independent forum catering to all scales. There’s some amazing work going on in the scratchbuilding section. The G/O/S section doesn’t boast a lot of users but the people who are there tend to be knowledgeable and helpful.

Classic Toy Trains. The forum run by the largest magazine catering to Lionel and other makes of O, S, and Standard Gauge trains.

O Gauge Railroading. The forum run by the oldest magazine catering to O gauge and O scale trains.

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