Garden Railway Forum

Great work, thanks.

Another great piece of work Dwayne, I love how it sits naturally in the landscape. I look froward to seeing a train passing through!

Can't wait to see the finishing touches to either end of the tunnel. Timber or masonry portals?
Grant.

Soar Valley Light wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2017 10:11 pm Another great piece of work Dwayne, I love how it sits naturally in the landscape. I look froward to seeing a train passing through!

Thanks Andrew. With winter rapidly approaching the layout will be going dormant for a few months. Maybe next spring, eh?

LNR wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2017 10:59 pm Can't wait to see the finishing touches to either end of the tunnel. Timber or masonry portals?
Grant.

Timber portals. Much more befitting for a North American narrow gauge tram in my opinion.

Warmish day here so I spent a few hours cobbling the tunnel portal entrances. Nothing fancy nor prototypical but good enough for my standard 10 foot rule with the knowledge that in the years to come most of both will be obscured by the Creeping Charlie groundcover.


North tunnel entrance...


South tunnel entrance...

I also took the time to relocate a switch that I had installed this summer with the intent of maybe running an extension to the west side of my house. I decided that as appealing as it was, that side of the yard butts up against my neighbors driveway and as such they'd have a view of it and the potential gab fest. I like my neighbors but prefer to be left alone whenever I'm doing my hobbies.

So I pulled the switch from it's location, installed filler track and planted the switch on the south side of the new hill just before the tunnel. For the moment I'll locate another small mine on the short section of track (still to be built and installed) with the idea bouncing around in my skull that I might continue on with the track and eventually head towards the area where the previous layout more or less was located. We'll see.

Those tunnel entrances work for me, well done.

The tunnel entrance looks good and agree with your keep yourself to yourself approach.

Very nice Dwayne. I love the rock behind the tunnel portal.

I love the potential that the new switch promises, I can't wait to see things grow in that direction.

Andrew

Thanks guys.

Spent some time today building a short section of track to complete the new siding.

Gee! there's some potential there with that spur, either ending there or carrying on.
Grant

Bikes and trains, can we come round and play please?

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2017 7:10 am Bikes and trains, can we come round and play please?

To be honest over the past year the bikes have become my first hobby and the trains have shifted to second. Takes more money and time to rebuild a bike. Of my eight bikes, one runs and three are currently at different stages of the rebuild process while the other four wait for attention.

have to agree with Grant that siding looks the business.
Japanese trail bikes?

bazzer42 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2017 1:51 pm have to agree with Grant that siding looks the business.
Japanese trail bikes?

Suzuki street bikes... '67 T200, '72 T250, '79 GS750, '80 GN400 and GS450E, '83 GR650, '97 GS500 and a new TU250.

I got my full bike licence riding a GN125.

Fantastic Dwayne, that siding works really well and fits perfectly into the landscape.

Andrew

You do make it look so easy and have immediate results, whereas in my wet clay landscape it would take a team of navvies several days to move the earth embankment and it would look a sticky mess for ages afterwards. Nice job there!

Got my full licence on a 1975 Suzuki TS100 NYB20P - some things stick better in my grey matter than others, what happened the weekend

Back to trains - agree with Peter. Any attempt to emulate that here would end in a sticky mess.

I agree about the siding - I do love that retaining wall. Also have to agree with Peter and Derek about the problems of claggy clay, I've said before how much I envy Dwayne's lovely workable soil!

Definite soil envy from me. We are on 6 inches of sand/ clay mix, this is currently liquid and on top of grey clay which is also rather runny.