Garden Railway Forum

That looks just the ticket, Ian! I an see something of the old KSR 'buses in it. Lovely!

Cheers,
Peter in Va

The odd thing is that I think I may be back to the drawing board. Somethings work on paper that do not work out of doors. The main thing I need to do now is get the benchwork completed so I can work out how that station throat is going to work. I cannot seem to get it put together in my head. I find...

Rod, I discovered that we go to clay about a foot below the surface so I could have driven longer piles/post down into the clay, and not have concreted for five of the eight legs that hold up the decking. The other three would have had to be concreted thanks to their location being in the roots of a...

Wood will always rot betwixt wind and water (or ground level) eventually. Generally speaking where houses are built of wood, the usual custom is to raise the wooden structure a little above ground level, and then make sure the siding goes down to a little below the sill rail of the building so every...

It's great to see some track going down - and doesn't your new stock look fantastic in the sunshine?! The "I only do this to enjoy it" rule is a good one - and one I often only remember after I've tied myself up in knots over some obscure and irrelevant detail or other! Cheers, Andrew. Be...

I gave some serious thought to the post-1947 station. The 1947 track layout is a little larger than its predecessor - two bay platforms, through platform, loop and through siding; turntable road, and two road loco shed. The older station lacked the through roads, and was simply a loop and a couple o...

The coat of paint was duly slapped on last Saturday followed by a second on Sunday when the weather was reasonably warm. The net result was an area 11' by 4' that looked as though it had been assaulted by the Royal Navy's finest wielding paint brushes - though judging from the shade of grey it looks...

The wife banned 'the brown stuff' as she did not want to be down wind of something that smelt like a garage, so I ended up using what they refer to as "deck stain" which seems to be some sort of paint. She is fairly sensitive to the smell of paint, varnish, etc., so I have learnt to be cau...

Now the clocks have changed there is a danger that that might happen, especially as there is now track outside. My favourite time for rolling stock building is late afternoon, so I usually grab the camera at the end of a session and record the recent results, which is not very conducive to outside p...

I wouldn't be too hopeful of having lots of extra time available, when I first retired I found that I appeared to have even less hobby time than when I was working! After 8 years of retirement things have now settled down to a comfortable balance but when I look back I still find it hard to underst...

A very similar sort of block system (but in proper units ;) not this metric nonsense) was used extensively at our old house to provide retaining walls in certain parts of the garden. Very effective and solid it was too despite the absence of mortar. When we costed it out it came in at about the same...

I have a favourite gardening fork which 'kem owt t'ark wi Noah' that I use for heavy jobs, mainly because the sleeve that holds the fork to the handle is actually long enough to stand some significant leverage being applied. Most modern tools quit at the third or fourth heave. My wife is also famili...

Peter, They are kind of halfway between the two here. 'Decking boards' are some sort of pressure treated planed soft wood over here, though you can get things like cedar for a premium price. It has a slight greenish hue which the camera did not pick up, and it smells a bit weird too. With regular tr...

Hi, Boris, I can vouch for it being substantial as I sat down rather heavy on the first section yesterday when digging a hole for the first post for the second section. The height was determined by the fact that I am going to ground as the slope rises so 20" was about the maximum, but that will...

The saddle tank in front of the dome is the first to empty, but it still helps even out the weight distribution on the full sized the loco given that the tank itself weighs something. It also has to be kept in mind the coal bunker is being emptied at the same time, so weigh is disappearing both side...

One thing I was not aware of until a discussion over on Facebook last year is that the Bertie has a high centre of gravity with more weight on the rear axle thus can be prone to centrifugal force rollovers on tight curves - mine has done it twice now. I've had a couple of derailments but thankfully...

The construction work on the 'table' for the main station has proceeded quite rapidly. I had the first 6' panel more or less complete on Saturday morning, and this was joined today by a second. I would describe the construction as 'orthodox' - PVC legs embedded in, and partly filled with, concrete; ...

As far as I can discover, the Filcris used in the UK is just recycled HDPE. The composite decking materials such as 'Trex' used in the US and 'modwood' here in Oz are a mixture of plastic and wood fibre (sawdust?) and are more stable. The data I have on the Aust 'Modwood' is that it expands with te...

I am leaning towards giving it a good lathering with fence stain, rather than felting. The worry with our relatively damp climate is that the rot will set in quite quickly and I will end up with a bench life of less than 10 years. I do know that the decking boards are intended for use laid flat, and...

I have not done the raised track bed thing before, but I am currently construction a raised platform for the main station of my line. This is constructed of 5.5" by 1" (actual) deck boards carried on a 3" by 2" wooden frame on PVC drainpipe posts. Thus far we are OK. The question...