The start of my garden railway

A place for the discussion of garden railways and any garden style/scale portable and/or indoor layouts
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Peter Butler
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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Peter Butler » Sat Mar 21, 2020 5:26 pm

Good to see you with us and bouncing back from last year's issues.
You will enjoy the Port Class build I'm sure, PDF kits are well produced and fit together well, just take your time and do plenty of preparation work to remove the print lines.
I have recently added pictures on my thread to show the two kits I have built.
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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by LNR » Sun Mar 22, 2020 12:42 am

You are definitely not alone Aaron, in having to reclaim your track after a pause in running. The permanent way is a great misnomer. I quite enjoy reclaiming track after winter, with all the growth you can achieve a good bush feel to things. Having a track even a small one provides the stimulus to do more, good luck.
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FWLR
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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by FWLR » Sun Mar 22, 2020 7:27 am

Hopefully Aaron you and maybe your daughter can enjoy a hobby that's gets hold of you like you wouldn't belief. Building kits is a brilliant way of personalising your stock. The work on clearing your track and the beds is always hard at first, but it will soon recover. What plans did you have on extending your line. If you have any rope or string, even washing line, you can lay that down and see it better. Thats what I did when I extended our line at our old address.

Keep us posted Aaron, it's always great to see your line..

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Andrew » Sun Mar 22, 2020 11:57 am

Yep, welcome back!

Hopefully the odd session of playing trains with the family will continue to provide light relief in the crazy days ahead.

Take care,

Andrew

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Aaron0290 » Sun Mar 22, 2020 12:45 pm

Thanks for the kind words chaps! Clearing the track yesterday has given me the motivation to get cracking again and as such I have already started work on the IP Engineering Guard Van I got at the Garden Rail Show last year.
FWLR wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 7:27 am Hopefully Aaron you and maybe your daughter can enjoy a hobby that's gets hold of you like you wouldn't belief. Building kits is a brilliant way of personalising your stock. The work on clearing your track and the beds is always hard at first, but it will soon recover. What plans did you have on extending your line. If you have any rope or string, even washing line, you can lay that down and see it better. Thats what I did when I extended our line at our old address.

Keep us posted Aaron, it's always great to see your line..
Thanks! As regards the expansion plans, the existing loop will have a much larger loop that runs around the outside of it and then further into the garden and around a tree we have. The plan will be to take up the existing track and add another two layers of bricks to create a raised bed as the garden isn't very level and the amount of tree roots nearby make getting a level track at ground level near the tree impossible (It will hopefully discourage our terrier from running all over the track as well!). We'll be putting some of the new track on bricks and the section around the tree on piles and wooden boards.

I think I'll need another 20-30 meters of track at least and another couple of set of points to allow the outer and inner loops to be connected. The track is the main barrier at the moment as it is expensive ish and I'm currently funneling money into finishing up restoring a car! I will probably look at getting the ground work done as regards raising the current track this year and look at purchasing all the track etc that I need over the course of the year once I have planned things out fully and measured up etc.

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by FWLR » Mon Mar 23, 2020 6:33 am

That is great Aaron.

There is no rush and it's better to plan and take your time and get it near to what you what and need. Lets hope with have some really nice weather this year...

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Aaron0290 » Sun Mar 29, 2020 9:43 pm

Finished my Phil Sharples kit today. Quite a nice little thing to put together, although I changed some bits - 3d printed an exhaust and some doors on the bonnet and added some IP Engineering metal wheels to weigh it down a bit. Let my daughter pick the colour hence the purple!

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I'll probably add some handles on the cab at some point as that area is a little devoid of detail, but for today it is done!

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by ge_rik » Sun Mar 29, 2020 10:33 pm

The louvred doors certainly add to its character and realism. Looks like you've made a good start.

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Peter Butler
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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Peter Butler » Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:01 am

Nice one Aaron, get your daughter involved more..... there's nothing wrong with purple.....
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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Aaron0290 » Mon Mar 30, 2020 6:13 pm

Thanks chaps! Lovely looking loco Peter!

Managed to get it outside for a test run today and it seemed perfectly happy trundling around with a flatbed wagon behind it. Unfortunately I managed to clip the exhaust with my finger and it pinged off into the grass never to be seen again! Will have to print another one today, most likely with a silencer this time (and a bigger footprint to secure it better)

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by FWLR » Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:02 am

Great having your daughter involved Aaron, she picked a great colour.. :thumbright:

Those little accidents are always happening to me and yes, they are also never to be seen again... :lol: :lol:

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Jimmyb » Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:52 am

almost as illusive as the small screw that hits the floor, you hear it, see it, but it just disappears.

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by tom_tom_go » Tue Mar 31, 2020 9:20 am

Jimmyb wrote: ↑Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:52 am almost as illusive as the small screw that hits the floor, you hear it, see it, but it just disappears.
This happens no matter what scale you work with!

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Andrew » Tue Mar 31, 2020 10:23 am

I once had a very poetic looking guard made from various bits of leftover Star Wars figures - I think he had a kind of waistcoat and great voluminous shirtsleeves which would have been most impractical when coupling up etc. He took a dive from his van during a derailment on a raised section of line and was never seen again. I was fond of him and searched hard, but that was two houses and nearly thirty years ago, so I don't think I'll see him again!

Love the loco, it looks great. I think my daughter Daisy once requested that my Regner loco, named after her, should be painted purple. I planned to do it, but still haven't got round to it. Alas, she's no longer terribly interested, so when I eventually re-paint it I reckon I'll go for Ffestiniog green, with "Earl of Merioneth" style lining...

Great to see your line coming to life,

Andrew.

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Aaron0290 » Thu May 14, 2020 9:00 pm

Hey folks,

Not had a huge amount of time until recently to do anything with the railway so I've done my best to make up for lost time since my last post!

Firstly I had the only functioning loco out with my daughter today for a while, the weather recently has done the plants wonders and they are really starting to spread out a bit more now.

Image

Secondly I have started planning out stage one of the expansion of the railway. It is a short one way section of track that runs from the back of the current line around the front and off to under the tree in the garden. I will be adding a station at each end of this expansion. I've marked out (incredibly professionally....) the new route in red on the below pic. I had planned for the line to go the whole way around the tree but the roots are so numerous and thick it would be more of a challenge than it is worth at this stage! I am planning on raising the whole railway up at some point so at that point i will revisit the idea of getting the whole way around the tree.

Image

Thirdly a new kit arrived from PDF Models today. It is the "No 11 – TRECWN" 99hp Baguley diesel that they released recently. Rather than doing anything useful today I have spent the day building it instead! Still quite a lot left to do but it has completed some test laps of the railway and seems quite happy. Hopefully by the end of the weekend it will be fully painted and detailed.

Image

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by Jimmyb » Thu May 14, 2020 10:23 pm

Aaron, looking good and moving forward.

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GAP
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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by GAP » Fri May 15, 2020 3:55 am

Jimmyb wrote: ↑Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:52 am almost as illusive as the small screw that hits the floor, you hear it, see it, but it just disappears.
Only to turn up again after you have bought a replacement. :( :roll:
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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by GAP » Fri May 15, 2020 3:59 am

Aaron0290 wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2020 9:00 pm Hey folks,

Not had a huge amount of time until recently to do anything with the railway so I've done my best to make up for lost time since my last post!

Firstly I had the only functioning loco out with my daughter today for a while, the weather recently has done the plants wonders and they are really starting to spread out a bit more now.

Image

Secondly I have started planning out stage one of the expansion of the railway. It is a short one way section of track that runs from the back of the current line around the front and off to under the tree in the garden. I will be adding a station at each end of this expansion. I've marked out (incredibly professionally....) the new route in red on the below pic. I had planned for the line to go the whole way around the tree but the roots are so numerous and thick it would be more of a challenge than it is worth at this stage! I am planning on raising the whole railway up at some point so at that point i will revisit the idea of getting the whole way around the tree.

Image

Thirdly a new kit arrived from PDF Models today. It is the "No 11 – TRECWN" 99hp Baguley diesel that they released recently. Rather than doing anything useful today I have spent the day building it instead! Still quite a lot left to do but it has completed some test laps of the railway and seems quite happy. Hopefully by the end of the weekend it will be fully painted and detailed.

Image
Garden and new loco looking good keep up the good work.

There is nothing that says garden railway more than a good old fashioned land grab and it will keep the young lady interested.
Graeme
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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by FWLR » Fri May 15, 2020 7:21 am

Nice big extension that Aaron, take your time mate and it will be worth it in the end. The new loco will be a beast when finished.

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Re: The start of my garden railway

Post by ge_rik » Fri May 15, 2020 8:39 am

Looking good already. Can't wait to see the extension ....

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