Garden Railway Forum

Anyone here planning on building this engine? The construction book that I had ordered arrived yesterday and I think that it is going to be an ideal winter project, a very simple design using standard stock materials plus some purchased gears. The designed body is a bit plain in my view but can be e...

For rolling stock storage and transportation I have noticed that at a lot of the meets that I have been to, members seem to often use the under bed type plastic storage boxes. You do have to shop around to find the right sizes but I have seen them in supermarkets, pound shops and places like The Ran...

Wow!! I'm quite exhausted from reading this thread. You really must be congratulated on the effort that you have put into this project, not least the actual photographing and recording of each stage. That alone is worthy of a 16mm Oscar (is there such a thing?). There was me quite proud of my humble...

Thank you both for the explanation, it's given me food for thought and a possible winter project experimenting. I was going to use Bowden cable to acctuate some points on my forthcoming railway extension but I'm quite liking the look of this hi-tech approach. Do you think that I would potentialy suf...

Tom, I'm intrigued by your method of operation using the SG90 servo and battery power. Would you be so kind as to explain how you actually do this as I was always under the impression that one needed some kind of fancy electronics to convert the battery dc into pulses that the servo would recognise,...

What adhesive will you be using on these pound shop "windows"? In my experience these soft plastics which I suspect they are made from, don't take too kindly to the type of adhesive that us modellers are likely to use.
As usual great modeĺling by the way.

I did look at this supplier when I was costing my railway extension as I had used Filcris on the first part of my line. Generally I have been very pleased with the Filcris as I know that there will be no maintenance required in it's life (or mine!), there are downsides cost being one and there are m...

How about one of the Brandbright kits, for example the luggage brake coach PS16. I built one of these a couple of years ago and I found it a joy to build but the important thing from your point of view is that about a third of the coach i.e. the luggage compartment has no windows. I think that there...

If you look on the Roundhouse website they actually show a chart of all their available colours.

I'm not sure what the weather is like in your part of the world but here in the UK plywood in my opinion is a total no no. The so called marine ply is not of the same quality that it once was, one of my garden railway friends has a ply base board layout that has just about lasted 12 years and in som...

I'm impressed, even the driver is capable of rotating to face the direction of travel.
Seriously though another of your very impressive projects.

One thing to remember with pop rivets is that although the rivet is ally, the stem is steel. In an outside environment this will soon rust and cause unsightly stains, although I do appreciate that this is something that you might want. The heads on these rivets do sometimes fall out of the rivet as ...

First steps on the repair/rebuild have been quite encouraging, I've resoldered the pony truck together but made new pivot bushes that the truck swivels on. Rather than them be soft soldered in I have made them slightly longer and riveted them to the frame stretchers. At least they won't be melted ou...

Some years ago I bought a second-hand Accucraft Lyn, quite a detailed and delicate model and really not suited to the rough and tumble of my line. I've always been puzzled by the way that the burner seems to be also flaming in the smokebox, as most of the paint has been burnt off and the roar of the...

Thanks for your various kind comments, it very nearly makes the time spent building worthwhile! Rik - the bell crank is to allow operation via a Bowden cable as this particular point will be located in a very difficult to access position, some 4 - 5mtrs away from the normal operating location. Only ...

When I first started out with garden railways about six years ago I thought that I would make my own points for my line and accordingly purchased a lot of the components to do this. After examining all these different bits and pieces I very rapidly concluded that life is too short to go down this ro...

In my experience 2mm diameter mild steel will easily bend cold, providing the bend radius is not too tight. However this does depend on the quality of the steel and I have found that some of the rodding sold for servos may have a higher carbon content, which makes for a stronger steel but it doesn't...

David, I do like your technique for getting the curve on you roof panels, it looks to be very controllable. Do you find that there is any relaxation in the curve when you remove the assembly from the work mate? In the past I have usually wrapped my roof panels around a suitable curved object e.g. dr...

I always thought that the majority of kit manufacturers had the right idea with their simple slab sides, easy to produce and easy to build. Now seeing your build l have completely revised my opinion.
Tumblehomes are a definite must.

I'm currently planning an extension to my garden line which will be a terminus area with shunting and loco turning facilities, this will be an area roughly 3.5m x 0.5m raised on a platform around 0.6m high. A very common method that l have seen of doing this would be a timber platform covered with r...