Garden Railway Forum

POR Ballast Report, location new locomotive roads # 1 and # 2 at Cabbage Tree Creek Station. After 6 hours of the Queensland morning sun the bake off is going well. Very firm already. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52545265462_0d4359bd10_c.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52546208370_ea...

Plod added some more mix on top of the earlier loco service area, more dye and 1mm black sand. This morning 12 hours later it looks like this. Plod reckons nothing will beat the real thing so he is going to bring back half a litre of steam oil home and tip it all over this area to get the grime and...

6th Dec, MAM returned home with some 1mm washed sand. :) https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52545609825_bbf223353c_c.jpg 2-3mm granite chips, black sand added to alter the fill, and some black mortar dye was churned into the mix. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52545131221_f4f78ed05f_c.jpg Bar...

24 hours after applying it looked like this. A good day of sunshine and the next few days the temp will be mid to high thirties. Out in western Queensland it will get 46 degrees ! Crikey ! The track in the foreground has a different mix with some sand and also some black mortar dye. It is the loco ...

In a warm, dry, climate (i.e. anywhere except Wales) I would expect the surface of neat SBR to congeal quite rapidly, as shown in the pictures. Assuming the concrete is already holding heat and the air is warm and dry it is probably to be expected. I never use water on my ballast and try to apply w...

Your SBR looks a lot thicker than mine which I generally thin down further to help it flow. Mine starts off with the consistency of single cream, yours looks more like custard. Rik I wet the track bed before I put down the dry ballast. Then I dribbled neat SBR as per Peter B has written I actually ...

Those last 2 or 3 shots look about the way mine looked with newly 'applied' SBR! (Thanks for the update on Mr Spectre, sounds good to me.) Good to hear, that is reassuring . Super the POR management team will pass this onto Mr Specture. His after hours decadence and debauchery is his own business h...

First ballast trials with the down under SBR (Davco Lanko 751) A mix of 2-3mm granite chips and colours Sand and black mortar dye into the loco service area to start with because if The Plod makes a proper mess he can tip steam steam oil all over it and make it black and oily :-) https://live.stati...

Mr Specture was lurking about. It seems he is a vagabond with no new railway to go forth to. However the POR management are happy for him to stay as long as he wants, till another railway wants him to call in ? Dazza, He does have another booking back home, but it isn't urgent. You seemed to be enj...

Mr Specture was lurking about. It seems he is a vagabond with no new railway to go forth to. However the POR management are happy for him to stay as long as he wants, till another railway wants him to call in ? https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52540966653_c1e7976f53_5k.jpg Mr Specture was most i...

Very impressive. And it fits into the garden surroundings perfectly .. or should I say you have created the garden surroundings perfectly to make the railway fit into the landscape. Thanks, that is nice, because that is what we wanted to achieve. This season's summer afternoon/evening open day runs...

Peter Butler wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:20 pm That's looking so neat and tidy, a lovely job and rapidly achieved.

Thanks Peter.
I drained the local water supply with the garden hose yesterday, to wash the dirt and grime and mud away. It was very nice to see it clean.

4th May 2022. The extension and tidy up gets underway https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52540413786_3d7e2ad245_5k.jpg 3rd December, all is done, tidy up. 95% of the plantings are in and the we wait for them to grow up and ground covers get going. Details such as the trestle bridge, signals, littl...

Plod is back from a weekend at the Rattler, late afternoons back on rock and soil toil. The last push of rock work is underway and if all does well the last of the major planting will be done by the end of next week then "Operation Clean Up" shall be launched. https://live.staticflickr.co...

Thanks for the advice, if I can’t find something online then a back issue may be the answer! email me darrell@llewellynbikes.com and I can send you scanned PDFs of the Andrew Allison articles . I am yet to get back to testing my coal fired loco, I have been busy all year with the POR extension and ...

Filling in more plant corners and strips. Some areas will be dug up and changed when the buildings and signals etc arrive, but that is going to be some time away, measured in years I suspect. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52517831394_f9dbae9802_c.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/525180...

Late afternoon it is a dash down the back before dark, another 20kg bag of concrete and some mortar, some more rocks. There will be more plants going in here and there. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52515757733_ea04c8b842_c.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52515757683_6bbbd3bd54_c.jpg ...

FWLR wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:58 am He's on the big pointed rock....

Yes, that is him or her.
There are two more young ones like this about the place this year. We have a few females and a large male that still survive.
We had a lot more Water Dragons but if they venture next door they are destroyed by the dog there.

Post the storm that was inevitable after the still, hot and humid days. As long as there is not hail. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52513297208_c00ae00b12_c.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52513297283_4a75d08ca4_c.jpg This extension is a lot more work than Plod had anticipated. https:...

Two full days of toil for Captain Plot, ably assisted by MAM who is the Potter's Orchid Railway's head horticulturist. The back section is planted out but for a few plants and some minor rock work. Then the front sections are now to be done. A wooden trestle will be built to replace the white ply w...