Garden Railway Forum

Postman brought a big box (not quite that big...) yesterday: https://up.picr.de/46715933sa.jpg My next 5" gauge winter project will be: Guess please, first hint: https://up.picr.de/46715935ls.jpg BTW Where can I get a replacement horse? This one is missing its tail. I have seen many things on t...

These stub points cannot be trailed. A friend has two of that type on his 5" gauge layout. Another driver wanted to pass from the siding onto the main line. Was going fast and did not check the track (and point positions) ahead. One point was in the wrong position and she and her loco ploughed ...

You are absolutely right. Many alterations have been made during its lifetime. Now the issue is to decide which state to choose for my model. Same applied to another 5" gauge loco. The stages of modification of the prototype were: Claud Hamilton D16/1, D16/2, D16/3 Super Claud So I went with th...

That might also clarify the "box" on the running board near the rear buffer beam. Were these sanders just buckets with a pipe through the bottom? Were there any means of sanding when needed or was this an "always on" gravity and rattle method? These containers would be suitable f...

My guess is a holder for an oil can (or milk churn),

Hi Philip,

the hoop is visible in this picture:

Hi, next project will be 807, now in London Transport Museum. (Found an unfinished 5" geuge model) I already tried to get the Brill branch book, but only found sellers that do not ship to Germany. I am now looking for photos of that loco and information about the hoop visible behind the left fr...

Where is he gone?

There have been no new reports for quite some time.

This is addictive.

I have just dug out my cracker (started mid nineties) and made the buffer beams.
So now I have a part-finished boiler and everything below the footplate.

Short local freight train arrives in the middle of nowhere:


Driver and fireman are hidden behind the tender as they are preparing to take water.
They have just moved the water crane over.

This is the same I found.

So my way would be not to have a brake van but have a red lamp on the last wagon.
This is plausible and also gives a bit of safety when running in the darkness (we often do that in autumn/winter).
As the last wagon is a Lowfit it will be easy to hide a battery.

The car was picked up at a charity shop and is actually tinplate. I am still doing research if in those times there was a brake van or it was solely relied on engine and tender brakes. Lion and Tiger were built in 1837 so I am not sure if brake vans were already in use then or even a red lantern on ...

Had a good running session today.

I built another Lowfit and tank wagon




TIGER easily copes with the load, even on wet tracks (we had a bit of rain inbetween).
Now the train is long enough for me.
I´ll leave it this way.

How about combining the two? Having a servo that operates a pot. So you have rheostat braking you can apply sloftly or hard. Maybe you could even fit a pushbutton to be hit by the servo arm at the end of its travel for the emergency short circuit brake. I have this emergency shortcut brake on my 5&q...

Had a successful run yesterday. TIGER and driving truck did some miles, running the whole day.
Now I can start detailling.

Hi John,

look here:
https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5371
Scroll down a bit.

As promised, some pics of the train.

We have come from this:


to this:


With mounted footrests:


I will add one more lowfit and one more tanker. That should be a believable load for this loco.

@Rik I understand your point. In 5" gauge you are a "real" driver: putting on coal, working pumps/injectors, checking the track ahead of you, enjoying the sound of the engine working. You are closer to things than jogging beside an ancient spirit-fired O-gauge loco or standing there w...

Hi Phil,

The chassis os a scaled down RCH chassis and the tank is also to scale.
As it is very slim it might look small.

@Rik The five plank and the grey covered wagon are made from particleboard. This had to be thick enough to carry the not-to-scale driver (me). This is also why I have opted for non-functional sliding doors. The roof is 3mm steel sheet. The brown covered wagon is a Doug Hewson kit (mostly resin), tan...