Garden Railway Forum

Before I started building my Wilmington Light Railway garden line, it has hard to believe it is 10 years ago that I first started this First Sunday In June layout! Although Covid amongst other things put a major hold on progression, to such an extent it is only recently progress has started happening.

I will use this thread to bring things up to date and give an insight to the reasons and thought processes behind the layouts development.

Let me begin...

What?
16mm to the foot (1/19th), fine scale model railway, intended for exhibition.

Who?
Three initially, now four people, narrow gauge enthusiasts, modellers, volunteers, all wanting to do something a little differently to the norm, bringing skills of draughtsmanship, engineering and art to the melting pot and hopefully coming out with something worthwhile at the end. The current team consists of Ken, Neale, Martin 2 and myself, that’s the team.

Why?
Three of us have 16mm live steam locos and enjoy the whole garden railway community. We are all modellers in 7mm scale, both narrow and standard gauge, the benefit of which has enabled us to exhibit our work at many exhibitions, an activity we enjoy. All four of us are regular volunteers on the Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway, giving us superb access to a whole array of narrow gauge railway items.

Our aim is to produce a finescale model railway in 16mm scale, scratch building virtually everything, using which ever production method is suitable, exploring laser/digital cutting, 3D printing, CNC milling, DCC control with sound.

The model
Will be a true scale representation of Stony Shaw station and the approaches, on the Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway, time stamp will be the first Sunday in June. Here will be documented the Warts-n-all process we go through in hopefully achieving our aim.

The beginning
Each Thursday we meet up and develop our ideas, some of which culminate in some test building to prove or visualise concepts. Between meetings there are projects we work on in readiness for the next meet up. Having a regular commitment should enable the project to keep momentum and progress at a regular rate. A timeline has been created to cover baseboard, track, scenery, signalling, stock and wiring, enabling parallel production to take place and give us targets to achieve.

The layout will be approximately 25 feet long plus a traverser fiddle yard, with the minimum number of bolts holding it together to allow quick assembly and take down for exhibition use.

To get going a site survey was made with a lot of measuring taking place.





Martin

Good luck with your project. Looking forward to seeing progress. Sounds like you have a strong and determined team.

Rik

Planning

This is the original concept sketch that started off the whole project.



The desire to produce a layout that gets away from the matt black front profile edge that is seen so many times at exhibitions. To find an alternative to the obligatory hanging curtain fixed to the lower edge of baseboards. Perhaps the inclusion of mood lighting to add variety to the presentation of the layout. I see many beautifully modelled layouts let down but ‘after thought’ presentation, a real shame. I strongly believe layouts should be designed as a complete package, to show them off at their best. There are some very imaginatively presented layouts out there, they draw you to them, encouraging you to take a look.

To this end, we have designed out the flat baseboard edge, FSIJ is to have a completed landscaped edge, to give the impression of floating in air.

The presentation surround to the layout is a complete contrast to the popular black by being white.

Main construction materials to be thin ply, foam and PVC. Minimum use of bolts for assembly, minimum wiring connectors.

Further sketching refined the design. We also built an initial concept model, photos of which I cannot find at the moment, but it was enough to prove to us it was workable.



To help fully prove the design further, a 1/20th scale model of the model was constructed using balsa, card and foam.

The support formers were cut from card to represent the thin ply, balsa was used to represent inner timber framing, this may eventually be replaced by thin foam in the real model.





Initial assembly.



Representations of the main baseboards.



A board and two supports taking shape.



Now with two of the six boards in place.



Upper and lower facias making an appearance.



To be continued ...

Martin

I found a photo of the very first concept model and it convinced us the project had some potential and worth developing.
The figure is a 16mm scale figure, so a scale 16mm scale model of a 16mm model!



Martin

The layout will be fed by a fiddle yard, rather than hide this away, we will be making a feature of it, thereby increasing the viewing footage of the layout.

This is the initial concept sketch.



As a contrast to the layout this will be mainly of a flat panel construction, with clip together assembly. The fiddle yard itself will be a traverser, hopefully in a powered format with push button track positioning using stepper motors. Viewing will be through the upper glazed panel, the interior of the fiddle yard will be mainly white surfaces and aluminium, hopefully all of display case quality and lit appropriately to enable show visitors to see the stock close up.

The lower panel will be a static display shelf behind a glazed panel. inside at the back at low level will be a shelf to hold all electrics and tools, this will basically be a wide flat box with a lid, this will fix to the front and sides and help form the fiddle yard box structure, from this the layout will be hung.

This will be the first thing assembled at a show and the last thing disassembled, well that's the theory

A model was constructed to prove the idea.



Martin

Things have moved on ...

Here you can see two out of the four front boards, one of the curved boards and the fiddle yard. We had decided to move away from a 90 degree turn and gone for something nearer 30 degrees which is more in keeping with the approaching curve into Stony Shaw.



Not being entirely happy with how the end of the layout was looking, it was back to the drawing pad to rough out an alternative approach to the overall look of the layout.



This looked far more complete in terms of feel so a new model was made.

Here it is in the early stages of mocking up.



This shows how the end board will attach to the fiddle yard.



We also tried out some ideas for lighting. We rather like the prospect of illuminating the lower front of the layout and to have the ability to use colour in the lighting if needed. This should also help accentuate the floating in air look.



Added some colour and buildings to the scene. The final track layout will not be parallel to the baseboard edge.



Once the layout has gone through the curve it will open up a view into the station approach.



Next up a control panel.

Martin

When do you find time to sleep, Martin?
Two projects (maybe more) on the go ......

Rik

I do like the concept, but won't you have to make 'transport cases' to protect the front edges of the layout?
Won't this also mean it will be quite bulky in storage and transit?

Phil.P

ge_rik wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2025 1:09 pm When do you find time to sleep, Martin?
Two projects (maybe more) on the go ......

Rik

These were done over a number of years, I am just getting the thread up to date, then it will probably slow down.

Martin

Phil.P wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2025 1:15 pm I do like the concept, but won't you have to make 'transport cases' to protect the front edges of the layout?
Won't this also mean it will be quite bulky in storage and transit?

Phil.P

Yes some form of protection will be required. We are not short of storage with a number of sheds and barns between us in the group.
Transport not a problem, we have a few trailers.

Martin

Further development with the project involves the control interface(s), although tablet and smart phone control is a definite, mimic panel was also felt necessary and to be in keeping with the project feel.

Initial thoughts were for a floating panel mounted on a fine tube from under the layout, rather like this concept sketch.



Potentially milled from aluminium, the track plan engraved on the surface with touch sensitive areas for switching of points and signals.

Investigation of the touch sensitive switching areas ruled this out on grounds of cost to develop them.

We have sourced some rather nice light touch switches, which have inbuilt illumination.



A scrap of sheet steel was used to see how they could mount for the panel.



Mulling the initial idea over the following weeks, we decided the panel at the very front interrupted the uncluttered lines of the front of the layout, a revised version is now mounted on the side of the layout but following the curvature angle of the end board framing. The thought now is to construct the panel from white acrylic which will match the rest of the layout supporting structure. The track plan will be engraved/milled into the acrylic with maybe LED/Neon lights illuminating the route of the plan when set.



A small design touch is to link the orange of the switch into the layout name facia panel thus...



Next up will be the fiddle yard, this developed into a format we had not envisaged at the outset!

Martin

Fiddle yard

Our initial thought was to have a traverser fiddle yard, be that manual or powered.

When we started drawing full size plans it became obvious this would be a bit of a beast in this scale, requiring a fair amount of space behind the layout to get the full travel. With this would come the leverage effect due to the weight of stock.

Thinking caps on, a fresh cup of tea and we set to work devising an alternative.

I present to you the rotisserie fiddle yard MK1.

A quarter scale mock up was constructed to get a feel if this could be viable. It seems we can get a six road fiddle yard in less than the baseboard depth and fully contained within the last layout board. We have the potential for pairs of parallel exit roads at each end if required.



Here can be seen the powered end, which may be by stepper motor or some other motor currently under investigation.



It will fit quite nicely in the fiddle yard cabinet.





​We are working on various ideas for track locking to ensure trouble free operation, with the intention for the rotary yard to be operated by six buttons, with electrical gizmos deciding which is the best direction to rotate to get the track in position in the shortest time, along with controlling acceleration and deceleration of the rotation.



Possibly the use of power location pins, but more likely to be powered side clamps.

Thoughts also turned to safety devices to prevent stock rolling if the boards are not entirely level, so a full size mock up was made of the current final solution to prove the concept.

We went through many complex solutions, but many cups of tea later, things were greatly simplified and this could well be the solution activated by the locating clamps.

A counter balance weight pivots a bar up which only has to prevent stock rolling off the edge.

This will all be refined to the minimum required to achieve the aim.



Although pleased with the concept something was not quite right with the presentation. Further head scratching and tea drinking came up with a refinement, make the fiddle yard board the same as the layout boards rather than the cabinet affair we had at the moment.

This photo shows the issue, original design nearest the refined version furthest away.



Removing the original cabinet really shows how the new fiddle yard will integrate well with the overall layout design.



Martin

Martin, as a regular listener of Model Rail Radio I have to say your reputation precedes you! I have to admit I've never thought to look for a picture of First Sunday in June but I have heard Tom describe it enough that I recognize the name. It looks even better in pictures than in audio.

Who'd have ever thought of a rotisserie fiddle yard?
Well clearly, you did ......

Rik

drewzero1 wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2025 1:35 am Martin, as a regular listener of Model Rail Radio I have to say your reputation precedes you! I have to admit I've never thought to look for a picture of First Sunday in June but I have heard Tom describe it enough that I recognize the name. It looks even better in pictures than in audio.

Thank you. It was a problem with audio podcast describing stuff for the listener. I did post photos on the Model Rail Radio Facebook page, but not knowing when Tom would release an episode made that tricky at times.
Not sure if or when the podcast will come back. We did do some video ones, but Tom seems well into his war gaming video at the moment.
Martin

ge_rik wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2025 7:45 am Who'd have ever thought of a rotisserie fiddle yard?
Well clearly, you did ......

Rik

It was a Eureka moment when it sprang in to my head.
I think it may end up attracting more attention than the layout itself at shows.
Martin

Rotisserie fiddle yard! Amazing! Fiddle yards have been around for, what, 3/4 century now? But I've never seen anything quite like this one!

It needs a 'Wurlitzer' style cabinet, and juke-box selector buttons..

I love it!

Phil.P

We made a full size part RotaYard to get a feel for sizes.



Thoughts also moved from a twin entry/exit yard into a single centre entry/exit yard, which means reshaped end supports.



The thinking behind this is we can use a hidden point and spur just off scene to do the job the twin exit was designed for.

Martin

Having already done a conventional survey of the station site, I thought I would try out an alternative method of recording the track by the use of a home made rather large selfie stick.



This was really only just to prove the theory would work, with a bit of perspective tweaking in Photoshop it was relatively easy to start to strip together a picture of the track.



Martin