Garden Railway Forum

Yes it's a GN400 that I used for despatch riding a few years ago I done 380,000 miles on it replaced most parts. I kept it as I lived on the thing 10 or 12 hours a day for many years and got attached to it, but it's now ready for the skip. It only had 6 volt electrics and the headlight was no good at all, I wonder now why I kept it going so long.

Tis looking good Al,

Won't be too long before the Essex and East Herts group are descending on you!

Thanks Stuart they will be more than welcome when I get a bit more track laid, unfortunately I Have to many hobbies and distractions to get it done quickly.

Some great work there al!

Me and my mate Mick have laid some more track and set in place the last blocks, Also we made the wood bridges and covered them with roofing felt. So just the track on the patio to be screwed in place and the return loop at the top of the garden needs doing. The bridging pieces are removable for dry storage when it rains.  :D


This is the original plan a few small changes have been made the sidings will be on the patio section and not beside the shed as shown, also we done away with the tunnel at the back of the bush at the top of the garden

Great work that! Should be an awesome run when completed!

I envy you for the nice long run and the relatively flat garden, slopes are a pain. That ballast between the blocks works really well. It may be the contrast in colour that does it, whatever, it is very eye pleasing.

Thanks for the nice comments, One thing we found when running a test train on the bend behind the bush at the top of the garden a 4 wheel IP Coach de-railed or sounded a tight fit at low speed so we checked and the bend at the hardest to get at bit was a bit on the tight side, Just as we started to unscrew the track on that section I said to my mate Mick I'll nip indoors and get my Roundhouse wheel space gauge and it turned out the coach had a wide set of wheels so panic over I shut the gap between the wheels down about 2mm. and no more problems  :lol:

I have checked my other rolling stock and all seems OK it seems that the carriage was a one off with a wide gauge. So check the wheel gauge before you use a wagon for track testing.

A bit more track has been laid with another change to the layout of the track I now have a warm up track on the edge and the main track will now go around the far flower bed then return on the lawn side instead of going round the entire patio thus leaving more room for seating etc.







Still lots more to do hope to start putting ballast down soon.

That's going to look good with ballast

What are you planning to use?

I got several large bags of assorted colour 2 or 3mm in size gravel from my local fish tank shop, it's rough texture and not the smooth stone type the fish people seem to want so he sold it as a job lot to me, will do a lot off my track with it, it's mostly grey,black,green slate and small amount of white and red looks good mixed together.

I use something similar, looks the business!

This is the latest track plan.

Are you really going to put all that double track in?

It's in already just the two end loops to lay.

Looks good Allen, little by little and one day it will be done........ What am I saying! Garden railways are a never ending project, right? But that's a good thing.

That's very true their will always be something to do. The cheap SDS drill I got out of Argos goes through the hard concrete slabs I had trouble drilling, so easy it took me by surprise, Like a hot knife through butter.

Having recently bought a SDS drill I would never not use one again for drilling into concrete. My arm no longer hurts when I drill walls!

Yes Tom I was amazed how easy it drilled the holes in my patio slabs wish I had it to start with. The return loop on the patio was laid today just the sidings and other return loop to do.

The patio return loop is now done so only sidings and far end of garden loop to lay and then ballast to be laid. Wet weather slowing down progress.