The Potters Orchid Railway

[FWLR]

Great seeing MAM planting some flora. It won't be long before your line will be the showpiece it deserves.

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

Great seeing MAM planting some flora. It won't be long before your line will be the showpiece it deserves.

Thanks, the real enjoyment to come will be the run day/evenings with friends and making new friends.

[Peter Butler]

It is certainly a lonely existence during the building process of a garden railway but the friendly gatherings make all the effort worthwhile.

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

It is certainly a lonely existence during the building process of a garden railway but the friendly gatherings make all the effort worthwhile.

Peter, I am acclimatised to working alone as I have worked alone for over 30 years in my chosen path of professional expression. Some times I do not leave the house and yard for the whole week or two. However I enjoy my weekends at the Mary Valley Rattler Railway doing Guard, fireman and driving shifts, however that is on hold till next month when steam services resume with all this C19 mess. MAM, my dear wife assists and enjoys the garden railway project. She trowels cement, assists with many creative projects with the railway. she is making tunnel portals in the Pottery. (She is a potter and painter as well as many other hobbies) Her Roundhouse Lady Ann kit steams well and she is yet to complete the cab and tank work. Her Pottery shed is at one end of the railway and while I am engaged with shoveling dirt, or heaving rocks she is near by most of the time throwing or glazing pots . She loves a project, of any sort. So loneliness is not really a problem for me , however squeezing enough daylight time at this time of the years is my big frustration. I got an hour in last night fixing a handful of rock into place. The Loco construction in the Red Room is on hold while MAM and I get stuck into the railway and the landscaping and paths etc are completed. Heavy garden work is a winter time sport here as summer can have many days at 35 -40 degrees.

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

The first major planting operation at the Potters Orchid Railway has begun. Senior management is confident that given some time this whole hill side will be a saturation of foliage, colour and texture. Meanwhile further down the line at the ravine Slartibartfast is working on the ravine. He keeps muttering something about "offending geologists" with the lack of suitable rock. Mean while there has been no work undertaken in the Llewellyn Locomotive Works as the staff are on secondment to Slartibartfast's Terra forming workforce.

One half of Senior management comments follow

It often appears to me that not a lot seems to be achieved after a full weekend from 6.30 am till dark at 5.30pm but bit by bit it goes. I get down to the backyard for an hour or two most afternoons at the moment. The plan is to get the heavy labour done while the Brisbane winter is with us. When the bulk of rock, soil mud and more rock and soil is in place then the paths and garden against the fence will be done. There is a planned sequence to the terra forming, so we do not get snookered with access for major earth and rock works. The day the track receives its ballast will be a significant event.

[FWLR]

Knowing how hard you and MAM have worked on your line with all the landscaping and permanent way work done, this will be one heck of a line to be very proud of.

[ge_rik]

I like the way you've matched the rock types and kept the strata uniform. Slartibartfast would be proud of you....

Rik

[pandsrowe]

Not being the best of gardeners, what is the purpose of all the straw? A weed suppressant maybe?

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

I like the way you've matched the rock types and kept the strata uniform. Slartibartfast would be proud of you....

Rik

Thanks, the selection of rock is getting thin, so I hope Slarti will be happy. We collected some free rock a couple of years ago and only now are we permanently fitting the rock into the railway.

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

Not being the best of gardeners, what is the purpose of all the straw? A weed suppressant maybe?

The straw is sugar cane mulch. Down under it is widely used as a mulch covering for gardens, without it your garden will die in a week under our summer sun. It retains moisture in the soil, keeps the soil cool in summer and as it breaks down and more mulch is reapplied over the top it then adds organic matter to the soil. It will deter the weeds a wee bit but for good weed suppression here you need garden bed matting or a decent layer of pine bark chips. Once the garden's small trees and shrubs grow and cover the bed then the need to mulch will reduce. We have the native bush turkeys here, they can tear up a garden in 5 minutes and spread mulch and seedlings every where, it can be heart breaking. We actually put some mesh trays over the bed Sunday night to deter the bush turkeys and give the little plants a chance.

To keep the weeds down we are sealing the ground between the concrete track bed and the rock walls with left over cement and or mortar when some is left over from rock work. Then basalt chips or similar will be laid to fill the space from the fixed in place track ballast to the rock walls in an effort to reduce maintenance and weeds in difficult areas in cuttings and such like. Weeds here can grow very fast and appear out of no where, a wee bit of rain and they boom as it is the sub tropics and we live with a lot of vegetation and wild life about. If one lives in the suburbs and or town houses, then it is less of a problem as it is a environmental desert.

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

Knowing how hard you and MAM have worked on your line with all the landscaping and permanent way work done, this will be one heck of a line to be very proud of.

Thanks Rod. I hope we have many visitors running their 16mm locos and stock at the POR in the years to come. We think this summer will be our first run days for visitors pending C19 and as the mud underfoot will not be problem with paths in place and such like. It is a building site down the back of our place, mess and mud ever where from the recent rains. My big thrill will be when I can steam my coal fired loco around the POR and have the sights, sound and smell of the loco. I think my loco build is at least 2 years away from being completed, mean while MAM's loco and visiting locos will be fun. Meanwhile I would a love to have a Roundhouse Taliesin to hold me over.
Meanwhile we will keep giving updates on what we are up to.

[Andrew]

Thanks for the updates, it's looking excellent, and really coming together - I'm impressed with your ability to keep a "Master Plan" in your head amidst all the chaos of construction. And yes, Taliesin is tempting!

Cheers,

Andrew.

PS I thought of you the other day during an episode of "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries", in which a murder took place on a train - is that the line you volunteer on? I didn't see much of the loco (rather later than a 20's design though, I'd guess?), but the carriages were really lovely...

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

Thanks for the updates, it's looking excellent, and really coming together - I'm impressed with your ability to keep a "Master Plan" in your head amidst all the chaos of construction. And yes, Taliesin is tempting!

Cheers,

Andrew.

PS I thought of you the other day during an episode of "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries", in which a murder took place on a train - is that the line you volunteer on? I didn't see much of the loco (rather later than a 20's design though, I'd guess?), but the carriages were really lovely...

Thankyou, yes the imagined vision was pondered long and hard before the first sod was turned. We sat on the garden bed above the back retaining wall of the railway and looked down with a glass of red wine, pencil, paper in hand and thrashed through what we could do in the space available, without over loading it, keeping the garden side of the gig, and not look like a table top loop, continuous running but with shunting prospects. Some inspiration for the main feature came from the Cairns to Kuranda line and the Stony Creek Falls bridge, but we went with the under arch and painted in the Firth of Forth Colour for kicks and giggles. We even have an extension in mind to run on stilts against the back fence to a station/ loop and a steam up bay and sidings under the yet to be built awing off MAM's pottery shed.
Re- Taliesin, I would want to fit a Slomo mech as I cannot cope with locos that bound about like an epileptic kangaroo, I don't think that it is possible with the inside motion, so it is no or make a Slomo wagon to go behind it and fit a zero back lash coupling. I am yet to get back to the Slomo tender for my loco build as all our winter time is applied to have a reasonable railway for Summer, Christmas and new year fun but that might inspire me to.............................

"Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" was filmed in Victoria which is 2000kms + away from us to the south. It is a 5' 3" gauge line. I volunteer at the Mary Valley Rattler which is in the town of Gympie here in Sunny Queensland. Qld mainline is 3' 6" gauge. My return to footplate duties is booked for the 25, 26th July and I am looking forward to this, however this could all change with the C19 mess.

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

I will add, MAM and I have never done this before, let alone even visit and seen another garden railway in the flesh but for gazing upon the empty Hampton Loade railway at the SVR in 2015. It is all research via SMT mag, pictures and the web. So the learning curve is steep.

[Andrew]

Thanks for the updates, it's looking excellent, and really coming together - I'm impressed with your ability to keep a "Master Plan" in your head amidst all the chaos of construction. And yes, Taliesin is tempting!

Cheers,

Andrew.

PS I thought of you the other day during an episode of "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries", in which a murder took place on a train - is that the line you volunteer on? I didn't see much of the loco (rather later than a 20's design though, I'd guess?), but the carriages were really lovely...

"Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" was filmed in Victoria which is 2000kms + away from us to the south. It is a 5' 3" gauge line. I volunteer at the Mary Valley Rattler which is in the town of Gympie here in Sunny Queensland. Qld mainline is 3' 6" gauge. My return to footplate duties is booked for the 25, 26th July and I am looking forward to this, however this could all change with the C19 mess.

Ah, thanks - as you'll have noticed, I know roughly as much about Australia's heritage lines as I know about its geography! I could just tell it wasn't the Puffing Billy line and remembered that some nice carriages also featured in a video you posted a link to! Enjoy being back on the footplate!

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

To keep the workers moral up in the muddy cool conditions at the Potters Orchid Railway the MVL under arch was again helicoptered in for a viewing.

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

The Potters Orchid Railway's senior manager is also the railway's head horticulturist and so soon as a feature is far enough along to hold soil the planting takes place so when the summer running kicks off the plant growth will be well underway.





Little snippets of greenery to soften the lunar landscape of the ravine, or should we call it a gorge ?

[Hydrostatic Dazza]

Meanwhile at the Potters Orchid Railway the chief laborer is working under the directions of Slartibartfast. There is tension as the rock supply is low and the concrete use soaring. There are comments that Rocks and Cement has become tiring to the spirit, any how the pond was commenced, shaping, clay lined, plastic liner, then more bags of concrete. In hindsight due to the cool damp conditions, quick setting cement would have been much better.

[philipy]

Going well Dazza. I'm looking forward to seeing how the water flows.

[Jimmyb]

Dazza, looking good, what mix of concrete did you use, and did you add anything to it, also how long do plan to allow it to set before adding water