Garden Railway Forum

Short local freight train arrives in the middle of nowhere:


Driver and fireman are hidden behind the tender as they are preparing to take water.
They have just moved the water crane over.

This is the same I found.

So my way would be not to have a brake van but have a red lamp on the last wagon.
This is plausible and also gives a bit of safety when running in the darkness (we often do that in autumn/winter).
As the last wagon is a Lowfit it will be easy to hide a battery.

The car was picked up at a charity shop and is actually tinplate. I am still doing research if in those times there was a brake van or it was solely relied on engine and tender brakes. Lion and Tiger were built in 1837 so I am not sure if brake vans were already in use then or even a red lantern on ...

Had a good running session today.

I built another Lowfit and tank wagon




TIGER easily copes with the load, even on wet tracks (we had a bit of rain inbetween).
Now the train is long enough for me.
I´ll leave it this way.

How about combining the two? Having a servo that operates a pot. So you have rheostat braking you can apply sloftly or hard. Maybe you could even fit a pushbutton to be hit by the servo arm at the end of its travel for the emergency short circuit brake. I have this emergency shortcut brake on my 5&q...

Had a successful run yesterday. TIGER and driving truck did some miles, running the whole day.
Now I can start detailling.

Hi John,

look here:
https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5371
Scroll down a bit.

As promised, some pics of the train.

We have come from this:


to this:


With mounted footrests:


I will add one more lowfit and one more tanker. That should be a believable load for this loco.

@Rik I understand your point. In 5" gauge you are a "real" driver: putting on coal, working pumps/injectors, checking the track ahead of you, enjoying the sound of the engine working. You are closer to things than jogging beside an ancient spirit-fired O-gauge loco or standing there w...

Hi Phil,

The chassis os a scaled down RCH chassis and the tank is also to scale.
As it is very slim it might look small.

@Rik The five plank and the grey covered wagon are made from particleboard. This had to be thick enough to carry the not-to-scale driver (me). This is also why I have opted for non-functional sliding doors. The roof is 3mm steel sheet. The brown covered wagon is a Doug Hewson kit (mostly resin), tan...

Successful test run today. Of course, Murphy paid a visit. During the first test with just the frame and the bogies, everything went well. Today, with the fake buffers between the two bodies the wagon would not go round the curves. I fitted the fake buffers with hex head screws. The screw heads got ...

My 5" gauge TIGER (sister loco of the famous LION) is a reliable runner now. However, my standard driving trucks look wrong behind it. They are just too big and wide for this small loco. I have a Doug hewson kit-built covered wagon, a 3d printed WD tank and a 3d printed Lowfit wagon. Sitting on...

Nigel B wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2023 6:12 pm
There are a few more dotted around. They come from Bewdley Brewery’s Baldwin IPA to which I’m rather partial!

Sometimes stuff comes from unexpected sources.

My 5" gauge garden line uses painted doorstops as fouling point markers. Right size, right shape, so why not?

How long did that take to print? I have no idea. As I have no 3d printer I ordered the parts via Treatstock. There is one supplier near where I live who does not only print in good quality but also takes care of suitable packaging. (Another supplier dropped a load of parts into the parcel, so most ...

Found this one on thingiverse, but many parts are missing so I took them from the designer´s other uploaded wagon projects. The result: https://up.picr.de/45568538bn.jpg https://up.picr.de/45568539ez.jpg I still need to make brake shoes and the respective rods. This is a nice and light wagon for my ...

I might also have him but surely would be written up for being out of scale (running 5" gauge).

Rookie wrote: ↑Wed Apr 19, 2023 9:51 am
I'm currently designing a GP60 for a 90mm guage track,

90mm? why not go for 89mm (3.5") and have many things like wheelsets available on the market?

ge_rik wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:14 pm
2. The new link to the quarry will supposedly be a link to Peckforton Castle...

Looking forward to the video of the opening ceremony for the castle extension.

Had to replace the camera.
The old link remains valid.