Negotiation of space in the garden for the railway

[fredminxis75]

Just wondering what kind of negotiations went into the happening of the layout and by this I mean:

What parts of the garden did you want to go/did't want' to go/were allowed to and were not allowed to and why. For instance one modeller I spoke to was 'allowed' to put his line along a wall and in a particularly damp area of the garden where few plants grow. Thinking here of other competing activities in the garden, general asthetics and how 'tolerant' the partner is. I know also some modellers are quite 'light' with the railway in the sense of not wanting to do too much in terms of construction work because of possible house sale in the future, which some buyers may find annoying.

Thanks
Ps my name is Rob MacKinnon and I am doing a research project that partly looks at model railways, please do e-mail me (rjm11@aber.ac.uk) for more info.

[Si]

For me, I was allowed to put it where I wanted as I do all the gardening, and if Mrs Si had had her way she'd have just concreted over the whole thing.

It helps though if you measure up inside the house for your newly proposed mainline O gauge layout....."how big is it going to be?" she will ask with a look of disbelief on her face, "well I could always built one in the garden instead" you answer in such a way as to make it clear that you are really putting your self out for her.

But I'm being as 'light' as possible with it as we want to be able easily turn the garden back to normal when we come to sell the house. The only limit I have on the railway is that it should prevent access to the clothes line (and obviously I don't want it under the clothes line where it will get dripped onto).

[Keith S]

My wife was a little dismayed when I started building a steam engine, because I had previously reassured her that I would not be getting "into" model trains the way my Dad and my brother are. But you see, she had no idea there was such thing as real steam powered model trains. She's not interested in steam per se, but she was relieved that they work outside, not cluttering up the inside of the house.

We do not have a garden at the moment, but in talking with the woman I gather that she agrees in principle with the little railway, so long as it doesn't resemble a "train set", plonked in the middle with lots of switches and yards and model buildings and circles, but rather resmbles a real narrow gauge railway, wending its way unobtrusively through the foliage and around behind things in a natural-looking way. This is my preference anyway.

We'll see when it actually comes down to it. I have to interpret a lot of grunting and eye-rolling when it comes to talking to her about any hobby-related matter. It seems important to her that I understand how completely uninterested she is.

[pauly]

initially I was fiven a thin band around the edge of the lawn then after Id proven I wasnt ruining the garden I was given an extra foot around th edge so the grass was no longer up against the track and then a few years after that I was given the entire lawn which allowed me to do away with the lawn entirly (seriously to hell with grass) and to put in a few inner sidings, a pond and a rockery

now my parents agree that the garden looks much nicer than before and my fathers glad he no longer has to mow anything

Original




1st extension


now

[Dr. Bond of the DVLR]

Initially I had to build my railway ABOVE the garden on shelves. It was great really and the imagination did a good job of filling in all the missing scenery. Then after being offered a scholarship and getting grade 8 piano my parents decided to hand the flower beds over to me to take over as a present. I am still not quite back to the ease of operation of railway no. 1 and the scenery needs a lot of work but slowly getting there.

[IrishPeter]

Putting the railway in the garden was my wife's idea. My previous railway had been a HO terminus to fiddleyard shortline operation, and had taken up half of the somewhat larger spare bedroom in our old house. Anyway, after several years of trying to fit a quart in a pint pot Herself suggested building a garden railway. The line of reasoning being -

small house + big yard = railway in the garden!

As I had been wanting to have a go at a garden railway since I was a teenager (I turned 13 the year Roundhouse started) I said 'thank you very much' and disappeared outside with the dogs and a tape measure.

The costs have been higher than she expected - being used to what I squandered on HO - but the CLR is small so the outlay when spread over several years has not been too eye-popping.

Cheers,
Peter in AZ

[laalratty]

I was pretty much given free reign over the whole garden, since it was quite overgrown in places and an eyesore. It wasn't my mum that I had to satisfy, but my dad, as he keeps a World War 2 Austin K2 Fire Engine in the back garden and this had to be able to get in and out. I also wasn't to take over the area the cars are parked but since this is on a very steed slope, this didn't matter.
I'm guessing you must be at Aberystwyth uni with that email address? The well renowned garden rail modeller Laurie Wright lives just down the hill from the uni. My sister went there, best decision she ever made what with so much Welsh Narrow Gauge reasonably close by and the Vale of Rheidol on your doorstep

Ps Pauly, what a transformation since you last posted pics of your line, a big improvement

[laurence703]

I am still in the negotiation stage... and its not going well... I mean its not a garden railway if it has to be 100% removable after each and every time I want to use it and then have to put it all away again...

I am making do with mad jaunts to Butterley and mamod track on the patio every so often... also really do enjoy visiting other peoples railways and not setting fire to anything mamod style... or in my case... Caradoc style...

[Gremlin]

We already had an established garden so the railway had to blend in and run through the landscape rather being plonked on top.
My wife wasn't overly keen but does agree that it has neatened the beds up, plus I do all the gardening. I built an Observatory a few years earlier, the post are where the roof rolls off to.
It was fairly hard working round the existing planting to get the track bed in. It is still just a line to runs trains but I think some scenery will develop over the years.
This picture shows how it blends in, there is a Millie and 5 Mamod wagons on the track.

[Dwayne]

No negotiations required here. My wife is easy going and realizes since I do all the yard maintenance she really doesn't have much of a choice what happens in the hinterland.

[St.Michael]

I selected a corner of the garden where nothing had been done, just a lot of shrubs and wilderness. But in my point of vue it´s the most perfect place in the whole garden as it´s a small hilltop, the highest spot of the whole garden.
We have also built a childrens playhouse at the same place, so the railroad encircles it, and I can play with trains while my children (hopefully) plays in their little house
π
The negotiations at this time concerns wether I can make a hole in one old outhouse building and drive the trains in it instead of carrying them in and out (That would be just perfect)
Michael

[Andrew]

Hello,

Negotiations for my first line didn't go well. My wife had thought I was joking until I started pouring concrete into the flowerbeds... We moved before that line came into fruition, and second time round I thought I was being more considerate - I outlined what I wanted to do and the impact I thought it would have, and that plan was agreed. The problem was that I hadn't really understood the impact myself and had rather underestimated the slope of the garden, which meant that in places the wall on which the line ran turned out to be a lot higher than I'd anticipated... Nonetheless, when I'd planted the whole thing and created really quite a nice garden Grace was quite proud of it I think - it was often her rather than me that pointed it out to friends.

That line has now disappeared as a result of changes to the house and garden, and a new line is underway. I wanted something more natural looking and so the new line is closer to the ground - it helps that I now have locos that can cope with a gradient. The route was discussed and negotiated first - I laid out lengths of track at key locations to help us both visualise what I was suggesting.

Grace wasn't keen on me bridging the back gate with another "lift out" structure (the last one rarely did, including when she had to let builders in and they had to duck under the thing) so I've promised to mend my ways where that's concerned. And I gave up a prime scenic spot (there aren't many, it's a small garden!) for Grace's swing sofa - we had to choose a design where the struts joining the legs were at a sufficient height to allow the trains to fit under it!

I think generally speaking ground level lines that are true to the spirit of the British narrow gauge (single-track, generally low-key civil engineering, constructed of local materials etc etc) are more likely to appeal to other halves because they're going to have less impact on a garden. I'll be keeping my new line as organic looking as possible so that even though it will encircle our small garden, hopefully it won't be the first thing people notice. Whilst it does take up more garden, a little patch of garden scrounged "inland" of the railway really helps in this respect and can make the thing much less obtrusive. My old line featured concrete block walls and I found that nailing twiggy screening material to the front really made it look more natural and helped it blend in.

The other key people I needed to negotiate with were the children. They were keen I should build another line, although I think I've only got a year or two before the eldest are ashamed of their geeky Dad! The garden's not big enough for football etc, but nonetheless the first line had to skirt a climbing frame and the new one must contend with a trampoline too. The climbing frame's about to go but for a while I was wondering whether the best thing to do might be to just wind round the legs of all the "amusements", run steam outline i/c locos and abandon the Welsh Highland in favour of modelling a miniature railway at a funfair... My railways have to be relatively childproof - the last one survived unscathed, but this one is closer to the ground so I'll need to build tough buildings and am considering telegraph poles on springs (!) that can pick themselves up after a knock...

The last thing that springs to mind is something that I read on this forum, one of "hussra"'s contributions I think, suggesting that although it might be desirable from an engineering perspective to build the whole line in one go, in the interests of domestic harmony it might be better to build shorter sections and landscape as you go. Excellent advice I think...

Good luck with your negotiations,

Andrew.

[KjellAn]

My garden railway now is in a small corner of our garden. This place was earlier crowded with old shrubs and weeds,
so there was actually no discussion about putting some tracks and a garden railway there.  :)

When construction started, it mostly involved putting tons of stones, sand and cement to the site. Then we found some
perennials and small shrubs to put along the tracks. Here is a picture of the site ...



My wife was happy to see that the abandoned corner of the garden now actually is a nicer place to be - both for us and
friends and family. Everybody loves to see a livesteam loco and some coaches running between plants bringing
refreshments to the guests of our home.  :lol:

[Sir Clothem Cap]

The requirements for my railway included it not being a trip hazard and easy access to the washing line other than that a free hand

[benchmark]

I pretty much could do what i wanted anywhere in the garden i wanted. I do all the gardening and my wife takes care of inside the house. I did however have to take into account leaving space so that the kids could still run and play on the grass away from my layout.
The garden railway did cause me a bit more work as now i manually have to mow the lawn with a petrol mower, before it was done by a robot lawnmower but the robotic wheels kept ripping the track off .

[Si]

Now that i've started laying track the response has been positive - she says that the garden looks much tidier than before!

[egdotcom]

Oddly, when the LGB started arriving in the post, the Mrs got very upset.
Turns out she was expecting something she could ride on!
Next time!

[PeachBottom]

When Tim (TommyDodd) and I first got together, he already had half the garden railway, so I knew what I was getting into. I loved the railway from day one, though I admit I hadn't done much gardening (and still really don't due to time!). When Tim wanted to extend the railway into the top end of the garden, my only concession was that he did not dig an operating pit (fear of future mini-lockley's falling into it!) and that he left at least some space in the middle for said future minis to run around in because I didn't want children to break the railway by standing on it/falling over it.

A lot of my friends have said to me "how can you let Tim do that?" and I always tell them it wasn't a case of let him do...it was a case of enhancing the garden! I'm sure we both spend more time outdoors in our garden thanks to the railway being there.

For me, it's not something that needs to be negotiated over. It just is. It's what Tim wants, so by extension, it's what I want. If we can afford it, we can do it. You see so many women these days who seem to think that they can lord things over their spouses and they play the game of "since you spent x on this, I get to spend that same amount on <handbags, shoes, clothes, whatever> and it just doesn't work that way. For us, our marriage is an equal partnership. Sometimes Tim gets the shiny new toys, and sometimes I do. Or sometimes we pay for the expensive sticker in my visa that says I'm allowed to live in the UK, but YMMV.

[artfull dodger]

I love the pics I have seen of Keith's garden. My layout is raised for ease of live steaming. I am slowly turning it into a raised garden. The hedges are starting to grow up and hide the wood shelf edges. I need to put my mix of portland cement and horiticultural grit to lock the ballest and encourage moss to grow along the track. I do all the gardening work, or any of the outside work so my wife didnt mind where I put the railway. Mike