Some of you might have seen the previous pictures of the DFLR I have posted in the pictures section (link: ). Unfortunately, our house was on the new tram extension in Nottingham, and despite trying to put up with the disruption, it became so bad that the decision was made to move (having been prevented from leaving my house to go to work, verbally assaulted, yada yada yada..). The last trains ran at the end of March, and the whole line was lifted at the beginning of April ready for the move.
The new house has a much bigger garden (yay!). However, I'm still only renting but have permission to build a railway as long as it doesn't do too much damage and the garden reinstated as it was before.
Click to see full size image
The garden is approximately 18 yards long from pond to front of summer house, about 3 times the of the old one, which means alot more mowing!
So after about a week of sorting out the house, a few spare hours meant I could start surveying the line! I had already decided I wanted a ground level line, it had worked well on the previous DFLR and made scenery alot easier, though I had to admit it would be very useful to have a raised steaming area! Originally I had intended to send the railway up behind the summer house, but I decided that this wasn't feasible due to the area behind the summer house being uneven concrete and two very tight curves needed to get past the compost bins and the BBQ area (to the left of the summer house). So I decided to settle on a oval of track, round the outside of the garden (to help please the letting agent), with two stations. 
Click to see full size image
This is what I'm aiming to eventually end up with. The first stage is to build the oval with the two passing loops, then I'll start adding the sidings. The dotted line is stage after - I purchased a cheap bridge at Peterborough so I'm hoping to have a raised section which climbs through the flower bed over the station to cross the lawn. But I'll worry about that later!
Once I've checked the levels (the garden is surprisingly flat, one side is about 3 inches higher than the other and the greatest variation was 4 inches in one spot), last night I started construction. I don't think I could get away with laying concrete blocks over the garden (if I owned the place I would), so I'm using the floating track bed construction method. I discovered that Wickes square guttering is easily wide enough to accommodate SM32 track, so I using this to stop the ballast from spreading out. I dig a trench, level the guttering out, fill it with about half an inch of pea shingle, then float the wooden track supports, screw the track to these, and finally top up with something that is close to scale ballast (when I find some). A similar method worked on the old DFLR and was relatively okay for 2 years, and since this is probably only going to be down for the same amount of time it should work quite well. I managed to lay 6m of guttering last night, and the play a bit with the pea shingle and wood supports in one section.
Click to see full size image
Sorry for the poor quality piccie, it was taken just after sunset as I started to run out of light. At the rate of progress, allowing for ringing commitments, I reckon 2 months and I might have a railway! [/img]
I had planned on spending Saturday track laying, but the wife is talking about grabbing the Ecclesbourne valley railway. 
