If you’re interested in garden railways, and you’ve been a good boy or girl all year (or at least, haven’t done anything too terrible), you’ll doubtless have lots of worthy suggestions for Father Xmas. Here are some of mine. (Hint hint, dear. Yes, I’m going to the Next website imminently.)

• Enjuns! A Roundhouse Millie, please! …Oh. Oh, you weren’t going to spend that much, huh? “The price of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange”? Ok…
• Wagons and coaches! IP Engineering have the practical and low cost Ezee range of course, like the cute little guards van. For more squids, the prototype FR quarryman’s carriage looks lovely. Or perhaps just a plain flat bed, which would be a good coupling for a Rapier diesel. But Coopercraft have the FR slate wagon, of which any number could be appropriate.
• Buildings! I admired James’s Lineside Delights small halt, but even this modest shelter is a bit too formal for what I have in mind. However, the LD032 Corrugated Iron Hut Kit would make an ideal Nantmor-type halt.
• Garden Rail magazine is “not available in the shops”, but a subscription is about £46 a year. It’s a bit thin, but all colour, all glossy and lots of nice pictures. (If you’re prepared to read online and print out only the best bits, a digital subscription costs half that.) However, given that the contents don’t tend to date much, you might be just as satisfied by keeping an eye out for bundles of back issues on eBay.
• James I. C. Boyd’s two volume study of the Festiniog Railway can be picked up for about £28 together on Abebooks or possibly less separately. Can be a bit of a dry read (ah, if only all railway authors were Wintons or Hollingsworths), but a great reference and a pleasant browse through the long winter nights. There’s also his On the Welsh Narrow Gauge, which I haven’t seen but given that it’s published by Bradford Barton, it’s probably quite enjoyable.
• Cyril J. Freezer wrote the definitive Garden Railway Manual, still available new on Amazon.
• There are some nice garden railway DVDs available (if you have time to watch them!).
• The Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers offer a useful handbook, a quarterly magazine (16mm Today) and contact with other members and railways throughout the country for an annual membership fee of about £20.
• Not going to dirty your hands and your image by perusing all this “train stuff”? How about a nice plant instead? Rooted cuttings of Soleirolia Soleirolii, also known by its common name of “Mind your own business” (no, that is its name - but you can mind it anyway) or Baby’s Tears, can be bought online for a few pounds from gardening retailers or eBay. And it makes lovely, vigorous ground cover for overgrown rail lines.
• Still stuck? There are always little people.