Garden Railway Forum

Oh my goodness that's commitment to quality earthworks on a huge scale, its a Brill thread right from the go
Looking forward to updates too.
Steph and Gloria

Those top two pictures are spectacular, can understand your reticence at scrapping that beautiful piece of landscaping. Still those holes in the wall and what has ended up extending outside them is a good substitute.
Grant.

That tunnel mouth was spectacular Peter. It must have hurt to destroy that.

We have now reached the present day (at last they all say) so the following pictures show the layout in its current format.
Starting at the left hand end where the track enters the shed from outside... The next feature is the beginning of the platform showing vendor and ticket office... This is the frontage of the station building... And alongside is the Victorian style gentleman's urinal... At the rear of these is the engine shed... Next is an area devoted to the museum collection of industrial machinery, two beam engines and a steam power plant... More to follow.

Brilliant - lots of inspiration in there

The signal box has full interior fittings, levers, instruments, desk, stove etc. none of which can be seen due to light reflection etc. I feel there is a limit to how far I need to go to detail my buildings as the overall impression of the exterior of structures is far more important when seen from several metres distant. Alongside is the signalman's toilet. This does have an open door so the interior can be seen. It shows a solid wooden seat, toilet paper in the form of the daily newspaper and pin-up pictures on the walls. This has been know to offend 'ladies of a delicate nature' so clearly it is quite convincing, although how they would know of such things is another matter... Passing the signal box we come to the entrance to the sidings through a gated entrance. Here we have one of several signal posts on the layout, all of which were built from Tenmille kits and still capable of operation, although I never do! At the end of the siding is a structure which is used as a carriage/wagon shed... Finally the end of the line where a new tunnel entrance (cast concrete by Cain Howley ) appears to prevent further travel. This is where the original tunnel was sited which allowed trains to loop to the rear of the layout to enter the fiddle yard. Alongside this other modifications had to be made to give purpose to the site. A boarded-up addit and retaining wall complete the image... So, that's it folks... thanks for your replies, I'm glad you enjoyed the ride. I had fun looking back through the records and re-living the years of exhibiting with my colleagues who I haven't seen for many years now.
Just as a final touch I will show some of the plaques given to us from various shows we attended and a few of the awards presented to us, the ones we were allowed to keep... All that remains is to write a new storyline for Eastenders, I was thinking on the lines of..... meths-fired loco in the back garden sets fire to washing on the line. wind blows flames into house and rapidly spreads to other properties. Before emergency services arrive the whole street is ablaze and residents are forced to move to shelters. The entire ares is engulfed in flame and only when under control a huge WW2 bomb is discovered which explodes destroying everything beyond repair.
THE END.

There's more.... When this episode is shown on TV the viewing followers of the series are overcome with grief and immediately turn to the one and only thing they can rely on and trust in....
FACEBOOK

In turn the Facebook site becomes so overwhelmed with messages for support it crashes to such an alarming degree it becomes impossible to salvage the system and it too is forced to close, permanently!
I think I'm on to a winner here!

Your on a winner all through Peter, but particularly that last bit. Oh if dreams could only come true!
Grant.

Thanks Peter, really enjoyed that, and of course the final bit brings it up to the early part of your mega, "Time to Build a Railway but where" thread ( for anyone newish here, who hasn't put 2 and 2 together)

PS Agree wholeheartedly about the Face-ache thing!

Great saga, Peter. Even though I've seen it in the flesh, I didn't take in all the details at the time. And then, of course, there's all your Emett stuff ...........

Rik

Thank you Peter - as one of the people who originally asked you to share this, I've really enjoyed the story, description and the pics - I (like many more I'm sure ) will draw inspiration from it all and use it as a great reference point going forward - the level of detail is staggering (loving the loo!)

Re your Eastenders 'script' - its a bit good .... have you thought about pitching your ideas to the BBC? - well if they don't grab them, I'm sure either ITV or Channel 4 will go for it - judging by the rubbish on there at the moment, your meths disaster sounds highly credible!

We could do our own YouTube production...

Thanks Peter. Did you ever do the Bristol / Thornbury show? Just wondering if I ever saw it And thought big gauge not for me. Since taking up the garden scale I have begun to appreciate anything with two rails rather than oo gauge or no gauge as I once did. Shame on me.

Hi Bazzer, I remember we did exhibit in Bristol alongside the quay in a converted warehouse, I can't recall the year off-hand but it was a large exhibition with quality displays over two floors. The accommodation was excellent too in a hotel overlooking the quay from the opposite side.
I remember several exhibitors were in the bar quite late until a number decided to retire at the same time, this unfortunately overloaded the lift which stuck between floors. Eventually, on release, all those trapped rushed back to the bar to recover from their ordeal.
There must be a moral there somewhere?

Hi Peter,

This has been very interesting, it's nice to hear how it all developed. Thanks for sharing the story.

Andrew

very interesting peter thanks for sharing