West Shropshire Mineral Railway, was Blank canvas W.I.P.

[DVT Dweller]

Well as I said last year in the "The List" thread, the plan over Christmas was to locate a trackbed for my garden railway in Wrexham. Due to a certain company needing more coaches  :roll:  and me having to find a new job this ment a location change to Shrewsbury.

So here is what the Northern Rock have let us buy, cant help feeling we are paying the mortgage twice over as our tax money has purchased them once.









Oh and it comes with one of those brick type things that has 3 bedrooms and the rest.

Ive not got much of a plan as yet, so im open to idea's and suggestions. Asthetics analyst says that the railway is not allowed to take over the garden or be an unsightly raised one.

As you can see the garage isnt of much use as a garage so this will proberbly becom the usual garden shed/workshop area. However there is no reason why the railway cant pass throught it and the 2 sheds next to it. and if the railway passes over the patio area Im thinking of having a removable section so that we can use it as just a patio. the whole of the garden is about 19m by 9m.

[Pendo Pilot]

Have you got an outside sh**er there Steve?



Thats going to require some planning with the rules.. I'm sure you will figure something out. I take it will be 32mm then?
Look forward to seeing it take shape mate. You could get your Mrs to do some digging, may make the sprog pop!

[Keith S]

It's more than i've got. Someone even stomped on my Island Railway and I was forced to pull up the tracks so they wouldn't get destroyed.

Good luck with it, I'm sure it can be turned into something nice. Look at Pauly's railway, it's in a similar space. I'm envious of your blank canvas.

[DVT Dweller]

Have you got an outside sh**er there Steve?



Thats going to require some planning with the rules.. I'm sure you will figure something out. I take it will be 32mm then?
Look forward to seeing it take shape mate. You could get your Mrs to do some digging, may make the sprog pop!  :shock:  ;)

Not a bog matey 2 sheds, possibly thinking of removing on to give abit more space...

Keith, the rules arent hard and fast, just taking her to IRONMAN's wasnt the best of ideas at the planning stage, a raised bed type line should be ok but in all honest Im not sure where the hell to start.

Can anyone recomend a railway planning site of some sort?

[Sir Clothem Cap]

is there a rear gate to the garden in the ivy?

[maxnod]

IMHO, forget it!!
Use your 'garage' and outhouses as workshops and make them secure!! Join a local group, like I did, with their own set-up, and go and run there.
The money you save on track and civil engineering works could buy you another loco or two.............and the garden is left un-molested for SWMBO!

Ok, you can't have an 'open-day', but it saves you and her the bother of catering to the whims of an un-known amount of people.

Just a thought..........

[Sir Clothem Cap]

hows this not to scale quick rough out

[Sir haydn]

Looks good Steve.

I would start by getting the tape measure out and making a scale drawing. Then hammer some posts in to work out a level, It is nice if the garden has a slope on it. Then you can have groundlevel at one end and raised beds at the other.
If you see a skip full of old bricks and conny blocks ask the skip owner and take them back to your house! Saves no end of money.
Use peco track!
Dont just keep the track to the perimeter, wind it round the garden inside flowerbeds, this keeps the inpact of the railway down.

[DVT Dweller]

Thanks everyone, I have had the tape measure out so Ive got sizes but the other W.I.P. has finaly got something to show for itself, Im now a dad, Little Evan Lewis Holt was born this morning. so railway will have to wait a little bit but I can cary on with planning though. Ive got about 4 boxes worth of Peco SM32 from my previous railway and the one my dad built and about 3 point so theres already a start with materials. Will get more info up when I can but got a few trips to hospital and back before mum and baby are allowed home to concentrate on 1st.

[Pendo Pilot]

As i said before on FB, congratulations to all 3 of you. Yes time will be scarce for a while but it soon gets into a pattern that is good. First 3 months I found the worst, after that it gets gradually easier.. So plan to attack the garden November time!! Which will suck as you can't concrete for fear of frost..LOL. You didnt plan this baby very well fella, should of had it in Nov/Dec time like me..

[DVT Dweller]

Things have moved on a slight bit, not on the ground but on the computer. I know the clearences arent right for the lower section and the right hand side but you get the general idea.


Click to see full size image

The two lines coming off at the bottom will lead to the two Termini. After a morining pegging out in the garden with my dad the other week we found the garden slopes off by about 6" over the length of the grass area. The plan is for track to run over the patio on removable boards so that the patio can become a patio again when the railway isnt being used.

http://www.filcris.co.uk/products/garde ... y-products

Once onto the 2 double track sections the outer lines will rise and the 2 inner lines will fall, this will hopefully give 1' clearence when the lines cross at the bottom of the garden to lead to the lower of the trermini. The side with the triangle will to contiue to rise to give a raised terminus with the possibility of a pit to give a raised area for steaming.

Im hoping to build the trackbed using Thermalite blocks so for anybody who has used these can I ask how you used them and bedded them in?

The next move as Paddy Mcguinness would say is 'Let the shovel see the ground'

[laalratty]

My personal view of using thermolite blocks is that it is best to put them on a layer of concrete, 60-70 mm thick although SLRmidge's line was rebuilt with a layer much thinner then this but seems to be coping ok so far. Remember as well to put some hardcore under the concrete, so you will be digging down a fair way (top soil is very useful though!)

[DVT Dweller]

Well after some sterling work by Mike & Jen Lowe from PVLR, the wife, my dad and his girlfriend the shovel has well and truly hit the dirt. For anyone who lives in the Shrewsbury area (or should that just be the UK?) it will be noticeable that we are in the middle of the drought season and therefore its rained constantly for over a week. However on Saturday morning the rain stopped and it was time to make a start, with a delivery of 100mm thermolite blocks, sand and cement, a cup of tea and a general plan made on AnyRail we started to make a move.

Start of play:



The wife making the ceremonial cutting of the first sod:



2 hours later and time for a dinner and the first section was in:



After dinner the garden turned back into a battle ground as work progressed:



Evan lends a hand with some help from aunty Jen:



“Are you sure this spirit level is accurate?”



By the end of the day:



Hmm that might make them bark abit…..



The blocks have been laid on a bed of sharp sand with mortar used to bed the blocks that are sat high in the ground. The main section built having the advantage (Dad and Mike wont agree after some hard work with the bolster and lump hammer) of being on top of the old driveway to the garage so plenty of hard core to form a stable base. The gradient isn’t as steep as it looks the lower line drops to meet the height of the path and the higher line climbing so it can pass over the lower line on the next section, the ruling gradient being 1:32 so it will make the loco’s work abit but not too hard.

The next section is to build something to take the raised line across the bottom of the garden (any ideas welcome) its got to have some kind of rockery in front it and the lower line will cross the garden in front of that, the only worry being that a single skin block wall at 12” high will not be strong enough to support the rockery in front of it. The section over the patio will be on removable boards made from recycled plastic.[/img]

[Narrow Minded]

Nice progress, but by the look of this weather you'll have plenty of time to plan the next section

[Mike PVLR]

an excellent days work and really enjoyed it, well worth the trip down but can I have my bacon butties next time. Cant wait to do the next bit with you. (I can really, I'm a bit stiff on my shoulders today).

[hussra]

Well done - looks like your line may already have overtaken mine for length!

[DVT Dweller]

Another bit of an update:

Purchased a rail bender from GRS the other day (I was even paid by work to call in and pick it up). A little bit pricey but its nice to put the track down and it all stays in shape without having to be pinned down, so the track bed in place so far has now had track laid on it and a couple of pins put in to stop it moving.

After it playing on my mind for a couple of days I decided to find out if the 1:32 was too much of a climb so fired up “Ffion Bach” and dragged the VoR around to see how things went…….

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At the same time I made a start on the opposite side of the garden getting the first couple of blocks down. A wedding got in the way over the weekend (Wine and Guinness does not mix well) so not a lot happened but the great weather on Tuesday meant that more could be done. A few more blocks have been laid:



A temporary bridge has been made across the foot path using the pallet that the blocks arrived on, this will be replaced with a lift out piece made of recycled plastic. This allowed me to continue laying track up to the patio area where the next section of recycled plastic boards will be.



There’s still along way to go but there’s a lot more in place than 2 weeks ago.

[Narrow Minded]

(Wine and Guinness does not mix well)

A sound piece of advice I remember from my Dad - "Never mix grain & grape"

Progress is looking good on the line though! I have quite mixed feelings when I look at photo's like these. On the one hand I'm obviously pleased to have a "matured" line, but on the other, the thought of having the opportunity to start again with the accumulated experience is always a tingling temptation
Keep up the good work and keep on posting the photo's!

[Sir haydn]

Looks brilliant Steve. I hope Mike is going to supply some buildings for the line being as though you let him help

Some nice gradients too! Look forward to more progress!

[hussra]

Great progress, looking forward to seeing more. I take it the path was deemed too new and nice for a "proper" level crossing to be laid?

The GRS rail bender fits Peco code 200 rail, then? Interesting.