Garden Railway Forum

On the basis of having dismantled track from boards which were used to link Yr Hen Felin and Yr Orsaf Newydd in its original from to run along the wall in the garden and having about 20' of usable track, I have now ordered some points and will get timber to close in the open frame on the right. I'm not sure what track plan will result but will try to accomodate the buildings from Yr Hen Felin (which will continue to exist as a portable layout as it has a definite purpose and life of its own) but won't duplicate the Inglenook puzzle. It's so much easier to bring out a few buildings than mess around with portable layout boards so more use will be made of the space.

A small video of a happy viewer on Sunday afternoon:-



Phil

Lovely! Our cat is not the least bit interested in trains - though might occasionally cast a disdainful eye over a passing train.

Rik

Great video. Very pretty cat too.

Having dismantled the boards which were previously used to link the two scenic modules of the thread title I had around 20' of usable Peco track and being pleased with what I had achieved in the new version of Yr Orsaf Newydd I decided to do a similar thing at the other end.

If a major play day happens the shunting puzzle can easily appear as a separate entity (though that would deprive the replacement version of its buildings). In between showers last week I built the new table surface and got a right hand point installed leading onto the new board. I had ordered two left hand points from a source advertising them at £10 each less - only to find they had none in stock at the end of the week. Two left hand points arrived at lunchtime today and the heavy showers which had occupied the morning gave way to sunshine so this afternoon track has been laid:-

Phil

Great stuff, Phil. Plenty of new operating potential there.

Rik

Looking forward to seeing it in action.

Trevor

This afternoon there was a sunny spell so Bakewell visited the Mill sidings, ran found her train, and delivered a fish van(!) so that the miller could have a delivery of fresh kippers for his tea:-
Unfortunately a few drops of rain fell so all timber based rolling stock was rapidly packed away in.

Bakewell did take some coal wagons back so that she could pose by the signal box in its recently changed livery:-

Phil

Earlier in this thread and in a separate one (viewtopic.php?t=15186) I reported the distortion that happened to a Woodleigh Engineering WLLR when I ran it on a day that was too warm and sunny.

Joe sent me replacements for the wagons I had bought and in the recent spell of wet weather I finally got around to making them up.

I have incorporated a pair of pieces of acrylic sheet in the hope of keeping the body in shape:-

I hope these will not appear too obvious when the doors are open.

In building the first wagon I spent ages trying to get the wheels set correctly on the axles, just by measuring the distance from the wheel to the axle ends and tring to get them the same and correct. Today for the second wagon I tried using a jig. Simply a piece of scrap wood the correct thickness with a hole drilled through. The block was marginally too thick but a quick sand with coarse abrasive got it spot on:-
The block was placed on the steel rule as the axle was tapped through the wheel, my workbench has far too many dimples!

Phil

Phil. After puzzling a while at what looks like very futuristic cargo in your van, I have concluded you have some extremely clever composable magnetic clamp and set square alternative going on there... is that correct?

Simon,

it's two 1-2-3 blocks between the acrylic pieces which are held by a couple of tiny magnets!

Phil

Well, today I have learned about 1-2-3 blocks, new to me, must get myself some!

SimonWood wrote: Tue Sep 09, 2025 2:50 pm Well, today I have learned about 1-2-3 blocks, new to me, must get myself some!

Me too... I'd never heard of them before either, although I have 3d printed something similar - with far less precision of course!!

philipy wrote: Tue Sep 09, 2025 2:58 pm Me too... I'd never heard of them before either

Originally designed for setting up, or holding, workpieces in metal working. eg milling machines.

Like v-blocks and parallels, they come in pairs and a choice of sizes.

Not something you need to use often, but when you need them, nothing else will do the job.

Graeme

Almost to the extent of clamps, you can never have too many machinist's blocks.

And that wagon kit looks great, by the way.

My 1-2-3 blocks have proved invaluable. They came with nuts and bolts to allow them to be fixed in whatever alignment I require, but to be honest I use them mostly individually.

The first time I saw any of these blocks was a few months back when a friend was using them as weights while laying track, so I had to ask what they were.

Four were acquired via Temu. Here they are acting as supports for assembly of a wagon:-
I had to take this photo twice because when I checked the first one the side of the wagon was not down hard on the blocks. There's a lesson in there somewhere!

In a recent post I showed a way of setting the end length of axles. I'd thought one of these blocks with a suitable bolt would be ideal, but could not find a suitable bolt. Then yesterday going to Cardigan for shopping I realised I knew a place where you can buy all types of fixings, hardware etc, with the result that Ibought one bolt the right size.
The block sits over an end stop hole in the bench to accommodate the head of the bolt. Measurement and calculation gets to what depth the hole should be, it's then very easy to set the axle ends to the correct length for the desired back to back
The block is also a useful stand to hold the wheelset whilst glue dries holding the wheel in place. Invert and repeat.

Phil

I have now fitted a Summerlands Chuffer to The Earl, an easy addition:-



A friend came out to play!



Wonderful to be able to get in the garden on a dry and non-windy day,

Phil

An impromptu steam up was held last Friday with three visiting engines. I did not catch Billie on camera but here are some clips of others running:-



Linda ran for a while with the IOM coaches and then when The Earl ran out of gas her load was increased as his coaches became spare



First visit from a Garratt with DHR stock



Then we had three trains running at once.

Thanks to John and Peter for their video contributions,

Phil

The latest addition to the fleet:-
a Plateway Butter van.

Phil

Looks a good time. Love those Austins behind the Garratt.