Garden Railway Forum

philipy wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:01 pm That is so impressive Tom, in every way. Thank you.

I've been meaning to ask, how do you fix the magnets to the track/sleepers?

Thanks Phil, it does make me feel watching the video back that despite the size of the garden and the lack of a continuous run my railway does 'work' even if it's not 100% what I would like it to be.

The magnets are simply stuck down with Blu tack, yes really! They have remained in place all through the seasons and allows you to move the magnets about if you want to uncouple in different places.

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:48 pm
The magnets are simply stuck down with Blu tack, yes really! They have remained in place all through the seasons and allows you to move the magnets about if you want to uncouple in different places.

Brilliantly simple, like all really good ideas. I must give that a go when I get home. Never would have even thought to try that, by myself.
I haven't done much more about couplings since the discussions a few weeks back, partly because of my stream project and partly because I couldn't think how to fix the magnets without resorting either to very permanent Gorilla glue or some sort of obtrusive screw-down strap. I've been using masking tape wrapped round the sleepers for indoor testing, but that's hardly practical in the garden.

Lovely video, thank you.

I watched it with the sound down and it reminded me of watching the Porthmadog webcam, with trains coming and going and quietly going about their business. The level of automation you've achieved is really impressive...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Andrew wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:04 am Lovely video, thank you.

I watched it with the sound down and it reminded me of watching the Porthmadog webcam, with trains coming and going and quietly going about their business. The level of automation you've achieved is really impressive...

Cheers,

Andrew.

That's what gave me the idea Andrew!

https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... 24&t=11900

Very sad news hope you can rebuild it one day always liked your line espesaly the rusty bits .

Great slow running and fine control, Tom and nicely framed video.

Rik

ge_rik wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:02 am Tom and nicely framed video.

Rik

Not quite up to your standard though, it took me hours to get it how I wanted it so it must take you even longer to film and produce your videos?

Hi Tom
Not too long. I tend to plonk the camera down during a running session so sometimes the shots are not as good as they ought to be. I probably reject about 1/3 (sometimes 1/2) the shots I take because they're rubbish (or a bit too repetitive). I sometimes have to re-run a train past the camera because there seems to be an unwritten law of garden railway videography - The moment the camera switches on, what can go wrong will go wrong.

Rik
PS - In the time lapse video of the wagon build, for example, I had to reshoot the section on making the couplings because I hadn't realised the camera's battery had run out.

As my shelf railway is narrow I don't have anywhere to place the camera other than hold it or play about with a tripod which I am rarely in the mood to do.

Love the video Tom, Thank you

What can I say Tom….Anne has given me permission to reply to you on the subject of your line closure…….

Please don’t give up with your involvement with the Forum, you have such a lot of knowledge about lots of things and your ideas do work. Ok maybe some don’t come up to your excellent standards, but we all have those in one way or another.

I hope you do lay another line Tom, it’s been great seeing your videos. I am just about to go away with Anne today and when we get back I will to some extent, be carrying on doing something with my line.

All the Best Tom.

Sneaked in a quick evening coal fired run but it was getting dark before I thought about taking photos so this is all I managed!

Rather atmospheric, I must say.

Peter in Va

Crikey, with that level of brilliance there's no mistaking the go signal!
Or is that just an illusion created by the camera?

Is it true that your Railway Shutting down tom? Great shot too,
Mitch

You may have left taking a photograph late Tom, but the result is wonderfully atmospheric.

Lonsdaler wrote: ↑Mon Oct 08, 2018 9:43 am You may have left taking a photograph late Tom, but the result is wonderfully atmospheric.

Ditto

Rik

pandsrowe wrote: ↑Mon Oct 08, 2018 8:36 am Crikey, with that level of brilliance there's no mistaking the go signal!
Or is that just an illusion created by the camera?

The exhaust smoke enhanced the colour of the working light on the signal plus it was quite dark and in that corner of my garden the light from the house does not illuminate under the tree.

Mitch stack wrote: ↑Mon Oct 08, 2018 9:08 am Is it true that your Railway Shutting down tom? Great shot too,
Mitch

I am waiting to test Andew's Russell when I get it's SSP Slomo fitted before I make a final decision on lifting the track.

If you read back into the thread you will have see that my experiments with SBR didn't go well and with my new cats disturbing the shingle ballast daily I got to the point of deciding to bin the line for these reasons and my general lack of interest.

However, the weather was lovely this weekend in Kent so I decided to try and reduce the damage the cats do by lowering the level of the ballast in the 'launchpad areas' the cats use for jumping up and off the railway:


I appreciate it may not look like I have done much but I spent hours going along the entire railway removing ballast, siving it to separate the larger pea shingle from the fish gravel and then packing the remaining ballast into place. This has resulted in a reduced level of ballast so now the fence panel boxing in so far is preventing most of the ballast from being kicked off the railway. Yes, I do have to go and adjust the ballast once the cats have been on the railway but so far it's not too bad and I have never had issues with birds moving it about (and the cats go to the loo in the flower beds so no special presents in the ballast for me since they arrived).

I will see how it goes but I did enjoy tidying the railway up and thinking about things I could do although the run is short and does get boring these days for me...

Welcome back Tom.... I'm sure your interest will grow, perhaps slowly, but clearly it is still there!