The Ravenser Odd and Saxon Town Railway

[pskipper]

Finally the builders have cleared the majority of their mess off the back garden (still finding lumps of plastic, metal and broken tile) and so ground works started yesterday.

The act of parliament for the line states that the railway must be unobtrusive, blend into the garden and not take the whole thing over. A raised bed around part of the lawn and a loop around the greenhouse has been approved so far.



With the help of our almost 3 year old I dismantled and re-purposed some old decking to make the raised beds. The curves are going to be quite tight (mamod track) but better tight curves than no railway The raised beds have met with marital approval as they will help us make the lawn more level so everyone wins

[Big Jim]

Well done. It is always good to get a line started even if it is just a few bits of track.
I personally would treat the act of parliament as more of a guide than the letter of the law. After all what does unobtrusive really mean anyway?
Good luck

[IrishPeter]

Given the nature of these arrangements I would read 'unobtrusive' under the terms of the Act should probably as 'that which is not so obtrusive as to lead to me getting an earful and having to sleep in the shed/spare room/garage.'

Peter in AZ

[pskipper]

With a 8 week old baby, being allowed to sleep in the Shed/Spare room/ Garage would be a reward

[pskipper]

Track laying has started today, but the weather is a bit too iffy to be running power cables across the lawn for drilling the bricks to fix the track in place



Sweeping from the patio onto the raised bed



We've got this far, now need to join the mamod track to a handmade (from ebay) peco track point



Close up of the gully and bridge, bridge made with the remains of a cut ridge tile I rescued from the builders tip. The gully is made from pieces of limestone dug up by the builders which I also rescued with scenery in mind.



Points and mamod track lined up, the aluminium slabs were just the right height to make up the difference.

All the track was lifted again rather than risk leaving it out over night but the rest of the week is supposed to be good weather so I'll hopefully have a good run down before the end of the week.

[Soar Valley Light]

Well done, progress indeed. It's great to get something down and running. I'm still building the world to build my railway in so I'm moderately jealous to see pway work in progress.

Keep us posted on your progress, I look forward to seeing some traffic on the line.

Andrew

[Dr. Bond of the DVLR]

Excellent stuff. Recycled and "found" materials for scenery is the best.

[pskipper]

Not the first run, but one of the first smooth runs, there's still a slightly dodgy patch where the mamod track joins to the hornby tinplate but I should be able to smooth that off The derailment at the end was due to me using a paperclip as a coupling linker between the mamod system and the cambrian models coupling.

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[pskipper]

Todays progress was to finish fixing down the track and put a small amount of concrete mix under some of the spans for extra support.

[pskipper]

The patio end of the line has been expanded following the arrival of some cheap faller play train points, with some slight modification these linked to the mamod track exceptionally well as the height from the bottom of the sleeper to the top of the rail is identical.

Unmodified track joiner..


Modified....

The joiner needs to be shortened, I left about 1mm of the linking plastic to retain a little strength. The track is too tall for the mamod joiner, fortunately there is a mould marking towards the bottom of the track, cutting along this and removing the bottom of the track this way makes it link up with the mamod track perfectly.

For some sections I modified broken pieces of mamod track (see my post in the General section about how it explodes!)

Now I have this on the patio...



However it turns out that the paving slabs have a very uneven surface with variations as high as 5mm so I'm waiting on some fine gravel to ballast it all before running anything other than a lightly pushed test truck.

[pskipper]

20kg of fine gravel arrived today and has resulted in stable track and a much neater looking railway



Young assistant pushing the test truck along the track, I think he had become distracted by pulling up some weeds at this point



Other end, the gravel makes the tinplate track look a lot less toy like.



However I ran out of gravel at this point so will have to order some more.

[Andrew]

Looking good! I'll be nice to see some trains running...

I take it the patio doesn't see much use?!

Keep up the good work,

Andrew.

[Dwayne]

Looks good. In the photo where your little helper is digging weeds, I noticed the two tracks that end at the edge of the patio where it looks like a dish or something is sitting between them. The thought came to my mind that you could perhaps install a flower pot base turntable there with the two tracks converging on it to turn lokies.

I believe it was Mr. Bond of the DVLR on this forum who did it and it's stuck in my mind as a neat idea.

[Dr. Bond of the DVLR]

Great progress.
The turntable idea originally comes from "MHLR" a member of the forum who has changed hobbies to petrol vehicles (we hope he comes back soon).

http://www.freewebs.com/mhlr/howto.htm

[pskipper]

The track with the slight curve will have the slight curve removed and an engine shed plonked on top. The one leading to the dish is for a turntable. I'm going to have a look at the flower pot base method but (with future plans) will need an 18" turntable which will just fit so might be going down the lazy susan approach instead.

With trains The station area is only taking up 1/3rd of the patio so we still have an area to sit and for some pot plants







The Mamods won't be coming out until I'm certain the track work is up to it, running the little Ruston 48DL has highlighted some difficult areas

[pskipper]

A lot more track laid, in fact there's only a 10cm stretch left to do.




For some reason I don't have any pictures of the wrap around the greenhouse which is on wooden scaffold boards covered in roofing felt and theoretically removable.

I have also started on making the mines/quarry area which is tucked away behind the greenhouse. One more tunnel entrance to build and a lot more limestone to crush to get the surface right...

[pskipper]

Slow on updating, at New Year we had the first live steam run....



Which revealed just how badly some of the track had subsided resulting in a derailment The Mamods both need a proper servicing too, couldn't get a reasonable amount of steam up and it was leaking steam quite badly from the cylinders.

Last weekend I was able to finally complete the last 10cm (Thanks again to Tom for the fishplates) so the track is complete...



Using a pair of scissors I cut small off center slots at one end of the fishplates which allowed them to hold the tinplate track in exactly the right position to align it with the track coming off of the points

I also went round correcting levels to try and prevent future derailments, just a small section behind the greenhouse left to do and then the next job is landscaping [/img]

[pskipper]

Well, due to an impending house move all of the track has been lifted now, all that remains of the railway is the limestone gully which the bridge ran over and the cement ramp which went up to the mine shaft openings. New house has a bigger garden though

[tom_tom_go]

Looking forward to a new thread of a line build!

[Big Jim]

New house has a bigger garden though

Every cloud has a sliver lining. I hope all goes well with the house move.