Building the Fairfield Railway

bungle80a · Post by **bungle80a** » Wed May 28, 2008 8:11 pm

I believe I knocked the stairs off when it was still in storage at the PTLR. oops! Even though we mended it a few times, its still got them missing!

ACLR · Post by **ACLR** » Wed May 28, 2008 8:42 pm

looking good Bungle keep up the great work.

then you can come and help me on the ACLR lol

bungle80a · Post by **bungle80a** » Sat May 31, 2008 1:22 am

ACLR wrote:looking good Bungle keep up the great work.

then you can come and help me on the ACLR lol

I wish! If only life were that simple!

Its rather late, and i'm not up to a full update of the last 2 days, but i'll post a 3 day update 2moro night. Instead, I have edited my first few posts in this thread to match the style of the rest!

bungle80a · Post by **bungle80a** » Sat May 31, 2008 9:07 pm

Day 24: The Sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray!

A glorious day (in comparison to the previous 2 anyway!). If anything, a little too warm again. The great British mentality coming out of me there, not happy when its wet, then complain when the sun comes out! LOL! IT was infact so warm, I had to erect this...

So todays work was block laying round the newly planned station area. To start with I had to cut the blocks appropriately to fit the concrete that I had laid the previous day. By lunch time I had got this far...

It didnt take till long in the afternoon to complete the station area, with it looking like this...

Around tea time, the boss and I were chatting bout other stuff, not directly related to the actual construction of the FR. As a result I had to do some planting. It involved digging a 2 foot hole, planting it and filling the hole. I'm not confident it'll grow though! What do you think?

That concluded the work for the day!

Day 25: A Chip off the old Block

The morning was taken up collecting material for ballast! It has been decided that fine slate chippings will be used, mixed with exterior polyfilla to ballast the tracks, so I had to go and get some fine slate chippings. To get stuff fine enough for our needs, a trip to the local slate quarry was the only answer. This stuff is basically waste from when they are cutting the slate into tiles etc. On the first trip up there we were informed the minimum they supplied bagged up was 1 ton. This was far too much (think those big 1m square bags they deliver on trucks!), however we could buy some by weight if we had something to put it in! We didnt, so a round trip back to my house was necessary to get some bags to put it in. Having returned to the quarry, we were weighed, sent up onto the fell where there was a pile of this stuff, bagged up what we thought was about 50-60kg, then weighed again and charged for the difference (which in theory would be the weight of the slate). We had actually bagged 90kg of this stuff, a little more than anticipated! However, we couldn't grumble because it came to a grand total of £1.12! Thats not bad considering the price of coarse slate chippings in garden centres is approx £4 for 25kg (I think).

So once at the FR, the slate chippings were unloaded and put to one side for when they are needed.

Blocking was the plan for the afternoon. At the top end, the remaining blocks to take the rly to the launch point were laid, except the last 1 as it would have been difficult to get to without displacing the previous few blocks I had already laid! This will be laid once the others have dried!

Another 3 blocks were also laid at the other end.

And that concluded the work for Day 25!

Next Time on Building the FR
More blocklaying towards the house,
Lay the last block at the top,
Tidy up the top of the garden!

SillyBilly · Post by **SillyBilly** » Sat May 31, 2008 9:55 pm

Is that boundary post(?) meant to represent Hode in Ulverston?

Great stuff Bungle.

laalratty · Post by **laalratty** » Sat May 31, 2008 10:06 pm

Isn't that a mile post? There used to be a boundry post up the road from us next to the railway (of course) and it didn't have a number on it

SillyBilly · Post by **SillyBilly** » Sat May 31, 2008 10:10 pm

laalratty wrote:Isn't that a mile post?

That's why I put a question mark

.

bungle80a · Post by **bungle80a** » Sat May 31, 2008 10:20 pm

yes it is a mile post, well, 1/4 mile post actually. Its not meant to represent hoad though. I have occasionally wondered how big a 16mm scale version of hoad monument might be though! It would certainly be a talking point in the garden!

SillyBilly · Post by **SillyBilly** » Sat May 31, 2008 10:21 pm

You should persuade the PTLR to build one!

ACLR · Post by **ACLR** » Sat May 31, 2008 11:07 pm

this is a mammoth construction project i like the look of it
patiently waiting for the next installment

bungle80a · Post by **bungle80a** » Sat May 31, 2008 11:33 pm

i'll post todays progress tomorrow Graham! in brief, its blocks n gardening, oh and a tunnel! Plus a cameo from some rolling stock from a railway featured in the latest SMT, and its not the PTLR! Oooooh! LOL!

ptlrcecil · Post by **ptlrcecil** » Sun Jun 01, 2008 5:41 pm

SillyBilly wrote:You should persuade the PTLR to build one!

No

SillyBilly · Post by **SillyBilly** » Sun Jun 01, 2008 5:56 pm

ptlrcecil wrote:
SillyBilly wrote:You should persuade the PTLR to build one!
No

ACLR · Post by **ACLR** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:16 pm

this has gone quiet
is there anymore progress ?????????

bungle80a · Post by **bungle80a** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 10:16 am

Well, its been a while, so this will be a very abridged version of what has been done since the last update. Cant remember the exact order of things but here we go...

The section nearest the house has stretched right down to the launch off point. There is to be a crossing near the launch, and how to build it still hasnt been completely decided! At one stage we considered building a tunnel across the line using a big paving slab, but unfortunatel, to accomodate the tallest piece of stock the step over would have been too high...

So now there will be a concreted crossing with a small slab in the midle with 2 lines running either side!

When laying the foundation for this section of line, it gets so wide it looked like we were laying 12in:1ft scale 2ft gauge...

Up at the top corner, the loop has now been returned to garden,

which has had a rather nice rockery built in it by the creative director of the Windy Ridge Railroad.

Since this photo was taken, the area behind has been filled with gravel/shale to make it accessible incase of any problems round the back.

At the other end of the line, posts have been planted for the next 13 foot of line, with 3x3 inch posts along the outside to join them.

Since that pic was taken, I have boards ready to screw down and level, but it is finding the time and weather around work and working on the PTLR CGRL and PTLR (N)!

Will try to keep updates a bit more, how do i say it, up to date from here on in!

ACLR · Post by **ACLR** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 10:54 am

wowow looking great mate look forward to more updates.
thanks for sharing

SillyBilly · Post by **SillyBilly** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:03 am

Great progress there Bungle!

bungle80a · Post by **bungle80a** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:45 am

Finally got some boards screwed down yesterday afternoon! That was easir said than done as the timber supplied varies in thickness greatly, and as i'm laying 3 boards wide to make each section, levelling was a nightmare! I've got about 15ft of board length laid across the back of the garden.

The plan has changed slightly in order to get the circuit in (due to it taking quite a bit longer now i'm working and helping with the CGRL). Instead of laying the full 3 line trackbed in all at once, I shall now be constructiong a single line circuit for the rest! The next bit to do is the 10ft radius sweeping curve at the back of the garden to bring us back towards the house!

SLRmidge · Post by **SLRmidge** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:59 pm

Can't wait to see it up & running Bungle, well done !

bungle80a · Post by **bungle80a** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:24 pm

It seems like forever since an update, and your gonna have to wait a little longer, but it is certainly still progressing towards completion. The first steam trials have been run in the last week or so!! And as chief engineer on the job, I had the pleasure of driving the first steamer on the line! Which was fun as i'd not had much experience of using an R/C loco before!

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