Garden Railway Forum

Condolences on the passing of your father Paul.

I must say you have done a brilliant job with your line, especially with limited resources. It's a shame that we all don't have bottomless pockets, but you will be surprised how much you can do with just a little bit of ingenuity. You can build so much with things you never thought of with very little outlay. But then again, if the products that the main sellers of 16mm could keep their prices a bit lower, then we may all be able to use them. Also it's a lot of satisfaction when you build something and you are proud of it and get brilliant encouragement from the members on the forum...

Sorry to hear about your dad, but it sounds like his influence will live on in the railway - which is looking great by the way.

Rik

Thank's for the comments & support, everybody, it is much appreciated.
I will put a video up, Tom, next time I run something on the line.

Nicely done.
There's a similar size and style layout on gscalecentral forum, albeit 45mm not 32mm, but it might give you some landscaping ideas.
https://www.gscalecentral.net/threads/m ... ay.311534/
It's located in Calne in Wiltshire.

All that nice brand new line, must have cost a pretty penny. But very well done.
Loved the little pond also. Tried to get Anne to agree for us, but renting, it's out of the question.

Firstly apologies for the lack of updates, it hasn't been a great summer & frankly interest in the garden railway wained as other matters had to be addressed.
However a visit to North Wales & it's narrow gauge railways coupled with SWMBO inviting the neighbours round for an afternoon garden party got my mojo back & in a mad dash The Candleford Green Light Railway now has a terminus station & a siding/steaming bay :-)

This was the scene in the lull before the storm today as the CGLR's entire stock was prepared for a 4 1/2 hour running session with something moving all the time.
No more photos as keeping something running, keeping little fingers away from the hot bits & keeping other little fingers away from the many parts of the railway that aren't finished & are therefore rather fragile was a full time job. The sun was well past the yard arm before I got my first beer!
The afternoon was a great success, everybody enjoyed my little railway, nothing broke & everything ran smoothly, which astonished me as nothing had run through any of the point work up until 1/2 hour before the first visitors arrived.

What was abundantly clear though was that the railway stands out like a sore thumb in the garden & I need to get back to what I planned to do a couple of months ago & get some planting & landscaping done to blend the CGLR into its environment.

Sounds like a real sucess to me.
Don

Agree there with you Don.

That is one of the joys of running and trying to take photos or videos mate, keeping little fingers of the stock...

The photo against the Conifers looks brilliant, it's worth putting in the Quarterly Photo theme.

The planting will get it looking even better when you can get around to it Paul. You will then be even prouder of your line and so you should be. It's a brilliantly laid out line.

2nd time I'm apologising for the lack of posts & involvement in the forum
Most of the back end of last year was lost to sorting out the cr*p that life throws at us & I then tried to start this year in a much more positive vein with big plans for the Candleford Green Light Railway & also stock for running at the Echills Wood Railway's garden railway. A spring build of stock has seen the start of a NWNGR rake to run behind my rather impulsive purchase of Beddgelert
It was never really the intention to run this stock on the CGLR as Bedgellert is a bit of a beast & long bogie coaches don't particularly like tight radius curves (to put it mildly!)
However in our new normal world back garden running is the only option & so with the sun shining over the weekend I took the opportunity to finally video the whole line which I'd promised to do some time last year. Bulldog was pressed into service as Bedgellert is still running a bit lumpily as it needs running in & it doesn't like some of my rather hasty track laying
Overall the line has coped reasonably well with a total lack of maintenance although a bit of work is required to sort out a couple of bumps. All those who said the decking needing more supporting were 100% correct but it won't be big job when I can get back to Wickes.
Normal CGLR services will resume when my Lady Anne returns from her makeover at Locoworks & the novely of the NWNGR coaches wears off & I blow the dust off the short wheelbase 4 wheel coaching stock

Thanks for posting the video Paul, you have a good sized run there.

Did you purchase the Roundhouse Bedgellert new, what's wrong with it?

Hi Tom,

Thanks for commenting. Beddgelert is brand new & is a little tight a the moment. I think it just needs a decent bit of running in to sort out a tight spot. If that doesn't fix it I'll have to wait for Roundhouse to reopen. As I said though it is a bit of a beast with a long overhang & although it happily runs round 38" radius curves the lurch as it comes into a bend isn't pretty! When the world reopens I'm sure it will be much happier running on the much longer & more generous radius curves of the Echills Wood Railway.

Very nice! I really like the "continuous run plus triangular junction to terminus" track plan, and the carriages look excellent - the new-ish IP Pickering brake composite would finish it off beautifully... Hope you get Beddgelert running well to pull them, although they look surprisingly good behind your Bulldog!

All the best

Andrew.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for commenting & funny you mention the Pickering Brake, it is in the assembly shop at the moment :-)
Technically it shouldn't run with Beddgelert as it was delivered to the NWNGR the year after Beddgelert was broken up, but I think a little modellers license is allowable
The current challenge is working out what colour to paint it. I've heard the replica currently under construction will be maroon so may paint it the same as coaches 12 & 13 even though they look scarlet in the sun on the video!

Great seeing you line in the video Paul. It's looking great by the way. The continuous junction is brilliant. The Giant Tortoise is looking bemused though.... Are you going to have a Jurassic park Theme in that area.... You could have train outings for visitors...

Thanks Rob,

The giant tortoise is probably looking bemused because he can't work out why he's stuck in a pen with only slate to eat whereas there is a big lawn full of juicy grass the other side of the railway There aren't any plans for dinosaurs to roam Candleford Green though. At the moment......

Glaslyn had a run out with a short rake of slate wagons the other day. It's possible that the CGLR has hit hard times & has withdrawn passenger services as the station has been demolished

"Thanks Rob,

The giant tortoise is probably looking bemused because he can't work out why he's stuck in a pen with only slate to eat whereas there is a big lawn full of juicy grass the other side of the railway "

....................................


ROD..

Oops, sorry Rod

Huge thumbs up to Wickes

Placed a click & collect order yesterday afternoon & got the confirmation email just before 4pm. Popped down this morning to find no queue & a really helpful young employee who even offered to load everything in the car for me although I was happy to do that myself.

Beddgelert will still have to wait for a smoother track to run on though because it's now pouring with rain & is set to do so for the foreseeable future

One image from a sunny day's running at the weekend. More coaches not really suited to 38" curves

As with the NWNGR stock there was never any real intention to run these Stuart coaches on the CGLR. They were bought S/H at a recent G scale show to run with Bulldog on The Echills Wood Railway in Kngsbury Water Park. A few of us are happy to let kids play trains after they've been on the 7 1/4" & I thought that Bulldogs not exactly sparkling top speed combined with the weight & strength of metal coaches would be a good combination. Generally the kids are at home with the 'car type' RC transmitter & always love the opportunity to drive the trains rather than just watching & most parents are happy to put donations into the fund-raising box so its all good :-)

For now though this rake is boosting the CGLR's passenger fleet

They do look nice coaches Paul.