Garden Railway Forum

OK, is this a small cylinder Ruby or a large cylinder one?  The large cylinder version has square valve chests and a 'oil drum' cylinders and are the cylinder-valve assembly s painted black.  The older small cylinder variety has a more modern looking cylinder casting which is left unpainted in facto...

I favour the old Isle of Man Railway philosophy - look after it, patch it up, keep it running, if you have time, clean it, and if you need a part and don't have it in stock rob it off an engine that is no longer working. Looking at pictures from the 1950s, the locos that worked big mileages were gru...

The station at Skebawn has ended up as a cross between Ramsey (IOM) and Schull.  The passenger platform is against the fence with the carriage shed siding behind it as these are the least difficult features to manage.  The loco shed is served by a siding off the 'town' end of the loop, and the goods...

I don't like thing overly clean. Even when the local staff were enthusiastic there was always a certain amount of dirty and decy to be seen, which is why preserved railways often look a bit too perfect to me. That said, the blokes had a bit of pride in the job, and things were kept up to a certain e...

I forgot to say that the Postal Service eventually disgorged Ruby No.2 and she needed a bit of tweaking. Like all straight out of the box small cylinder 'Rubies' she likes to runaway, so she'll either get the exhaust regulator treatment, or R/C.. Paradoxically, the first cattle wagon has been enough...

Pitures will following in a day or two. I have a couple of hectic days coming up, but after that I should be at liberty to put together another picture page. Not much to see yet - just track and rolling stock. My contribution to the small world syndrome is that I used to help out in the northwest Ir...

Since the last posting the track layout at Skebawn has been completed apart from the cattle dock, and ballasting is well under way.  Facilities at Skebawn will eventually include a loco shed and workshop, carriage shed, good shed and platform, cattle dock, and a smallish passenger station with a hal...

There should be a couple of pictures of the new four wheeler at http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ttac/SCLRTphotos3.html Since I got that one up and running a three plank open has been built and I am now on the first of my cattle wagons, which is of the Castlederg and Victoria Bridge Tramway convertible ...

Sir Clothem Cap:52177 wrote:I sent one of mine to scotland and it hasn't run since. They don't dp mamod fuel north of hadrians wall I hear.

Yes, it is too cold for camels, and Scotland's production of meths goes into supermarket whisky!

Peter in AZ

I think when I have the station buildings in position - booking office/waiting room, loco shed, goods shed, etc., the station begin to look like a cross between Castlederg and Schull!  The one facility that I am having difficulty finding a home for is the cattle dock.  It may well end up being insta...

Today I had a couple of hours at the end of the afternoon, so I had the opportunity to lay the loop, and the pointwork for the yard.  The only difficult bit was cutting the closure between the loop line and the engine shed points.  The moment when I actually have to start building buildings is fast ...

Here are two more pages of pics from the S&CLR&T showing recent progress.

http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ttac/SCLRTphotos2.html

and

http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ttac/SCLRTphotos3.html

Peter in AZ

My periscope went up at the mention of "Barton Ings," mainly because I used to live on Barton Waterside, and Blyth's Tileyard, which was located in the Far Ings, had their claypit in the fields behind our house. Whenever I head the thump-thump-thump of the Ruston locomotive coming out from...

I think the key thing with 15/16mm locos and equipment is the "does it look right" factor. Most of my rolling stock is built for a line with a notional 11'0" by 8'0" (165mm x 120mm) loading gauge, but I doubt if any of my passenger vehicles is taller than 9'8" or wider than ...

I may be a bit of an oddball here, but I would imagine that the width would be more of an issue.  The batting average for 2' gauge steam locomotives is around 6' or 96mm in SM32.  However, Roundhouse generic locomotives are 125mm wide or almost 7'10" in 16mm.  For SM32 this seems a bit extreme ...

The moral of the story is use the largest radius practical.  I am lucky in that 5' is the minimum I need to make it fit, and that is only where there is an awkward little jink in the geography of the yard.  It replaced a 10' radius S curve that was the source of many derailments due to the Norwegian...

Daffodils around the church, warm temperatures all last week, it was looking good for the spring tracklaying season - until I got up this morning and IT WAS SNOWING Spring has truly sprung - it is snowing in Mile-Hi Arizona! Our reputation for barmy (rather than balmy) weather is upheld once again L...

Don't worry!  Our narrow gauge railways belong to the era of the high-visibility oily flat cap and keeping your ears open rather than that of the orange w***er jacket (as we used to call them in the sorting office)..

Peter in AZ

Having recovered from the annual paperwork hell hole that is annual reports, etc., I managed to get back to the railway today, though I have been piddling about off and with little jobs. Task #1 was to buy ballast.  This involved a trip to 'the Dirt Mines' at the north end of town.  It is the sort o...

The colour is very reminescent of the one the Isle of Man Railway used 1946-67. This was made in the works by grinding haematite ore with oil to produce a brownish-red paint. This slowly weathered to a reddish brown due the the slow oxidization of the pigment in the paint. I imagine the lads at Bost...