Garden Railway Forum

Thank you all for your encouragement. Appreciated. “...I'm a fan of the smaller BR standard locos too...” Yes. I saw the pristine 4MT 2-6-0 at the North Norfolk Railway not that long ago and now (along with any of the Bulleids, obviously) it’s on my shortlist for the Most Agreeable Looking Locomotiv...

“I use similar materials and work from pictures/photographs rather than engineer's drawings” Thank you, yes. My stuff isn’t to scale, of course. I have a basic loading gauge height and width established but to determine key model dimensions I do have to do my own simplified drawing or adapt a publi...

Thank you very much for all the flattering comment. To be honest, I’d feel a bit awkward claiming too much expertise here though: I make all sorts of messy mistakes and miscalculations - I just haven’t posted photographs of the worst of them! The structure is largely 2mm plasticard sheet (from 4D Mo...

1_2MT.jpg 2_2MT.jpg 3_2MT.jpg Festive Greetings from a fantasy world of semi-scale, 3’11” gauge British Railways, with a new build based (rather loosely) on the BR 2MT. It’s a caricature, obviously: wrong gauge, shortened boiler (the wheelbase of the motor block isn’t really long enough – but if it...

Our garden is way too untidy, wet and miserable to photograph right now, so here’s another archive snap, of a GWR-inspired locomotive, built on a Bachmann ‘James’ motorblock and certainly not going fast. It still needed weight added and serious track cleaning, to stop slipping, sticking and judderin...

Andrew wrote: ↑Tue Oct 22, 2019 12:47 pm ...would you consider tender drive to be cheating?

No, I certainly wouldn’t. That’s a neat idea. I even have a suitable motor block. Hmmm...

...I reckon an N or U class mogul would look great... Thank you. Absolutely. I did have a go at a sort of, ‘generic’, distantly Southern inspired, mogul a few years ago, though I really ought to have tried a bit harder – most of the effort went into the smoke deflectors! But it looks OK trundling r...

What an attractive locomotive. Extraordinary construction too. Terrific.

Thanks again for all the encouraging comment. Greatly appreciated. I can understand that the music isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. I began tinkering with it just to hide background noise, then slowly woke up to the notion that it can provide timing to edit to - and scope to contrive ‘jokes’...

For anyone who can handle even more of this stuff, here’s the ‘new’ (compiled from previously published clips) YouTube channel trailer.
Short and noisy!

“I love the build thread at the end of the video...” That’s very decent of you. It’s strictly kitchen table and plasticard. I wasn’t sure about showing it, as I’ve explained, in the context of the more accomplished stuff regularly featured on this forum - including, of course, your own. So, thank y...

Thank you for your comments.

idlemarvel wrote: ↑Mon Sep 02, 2019 7:00 am “...most of our railways are fictional, based on personally selected facts!”

Thanks, yes. We can make a couple of thin factoids go a long way. Well, I try.

At last! A 13min epic, featuring a few minutes of it actually moving, now posted in ‘Videos’ - ‘Semi-scale BR: Strictly Bulleid*’

More video fun: round and round the garden like a... cartoon-scale, Q1-derived tank engine (first effort with Deltang R/C) and a (track powered) Leader. https://youtu.be/YzcYjn_SmIE At low speeds they don’t provide too much soundtrack on their own (annoying squeaks largely) so 1:1 scale audio (and m...

Terrific. Very elegantly done, a proper narrative and avoiding repetitive, unnecessary shots. Love the stuff from within the compartment(s). Have you considered replacing the subtitles with a voice-over? After all, you have a story to tell rather than, if you like, merely captioning a sequence of in...

Semi-scale Bulleid tank engine, caught squeaking around the shrubbery (further lubrication required). Truth be told I’ve brightened this one a bit so it may not be eligible for any prize giving. Probably too many weeds too. QTank_800.jpg And here’s a picture of the cat that meets the brief (though n...

I don't have too much 'railway scenery' so it's got to be one of these really. This bridge has now been replaced (and pictured in the previous gallery).

Those final three photographs of it all in place are terrific. Beautifully realised and convincing as usual. Will you leave them all outside permanently?

(I’m having a go at a first foamboard/plasticard building, scratching my head regarding adhesives... Thank you)

Thank you all for your kind remarks. Regarding Rik's comment on 'steady camera work': 'The first rule of photography', it has been impatiently explained to me, is 'always use a [expletive deleted] tripod' which I now adhere to religiously. Probably even when I shouldn’t (it’s video and stuff moves)....

Spring has sprung, the track's been cleaned, the first train let loose. Shortly followed, inevitably, by mobile phone with camera... https://youtu.be/ojlGOevnSiI Nothing new unfortunately – and it doesn't really make all those noises, of course. Audio clips of real Pannier tanks ladled on in the edit.