Garden Railway Forum

Just for fun, this thread is for pictures / videos / links related to early garden railways.

I find it fascinating how the hobby of playing trains in the garden has been around for so long, and it is interesting to see what has changed (and what hasn't!).

I am more familiar with the larger (ride-on) scales, but all are of interest.

Not going to try and define "early" too strictly, but maybe pre second world war? That would make for a fairly clean division from the modern era. Or maybe pre 1970s (and the rise in popularity of 16mm & G scale) would be better?

I am going to kick off with the Brookhouse Miniature Railway, built by a mr Guy Mitchell in the early 1900s.

There are some excellent photos at the following site:

http://www.sheffieldmodelengineers.com/ ... ilway.html

Whilst being 3 1/2" and 7 1/4" gauge, many features can still be seen on our railways today, including scale signalling, lineside buildings, and carefully landscaped scenery.

More excellent pictures of this charming railway at the following site:

http://www.totleyhistorygroup.org.uk/ph ... s-railway/

Including this one, which really gives a flavour of what the railway must have been like:

_20200704_202610 by simon mace, on Flickr

There is also the 10 1/4" gauge railway built by Mr Holder at his home in Beaulieu. This video is dated 1936, and the railway is clearly already well established:



Very much the plaything of a wealthy gentleman!

And another british pathe video, 1933 this time, and what looks like a pretty extensive line in (probably) gauge 1:

YouTube has just suggested this excellent example from 1931:



A very sophisticated system including multiple bridges, tunnels, a road system, and even a harbour with clockwork boats!

Looks like gauge 1 again to me, mostly clockwork, with at least one live steam loco

Incredible pictures and footage.

I think these guys were all crazier than we all are?

Andy

TOPSY dates from 1869: https://www.festipedia.org.uk/wiki/Topsy

Probably the greatest inspiration for me was Rev Peter Denny's Trepolpen Valley Light Railway, which appeared in various guises through the 1960s and 70s.

He used clockwork powered locos and positioned the stations so they were a predictable number of key turns apart.

This photo from the August 1975 edition of Railway Modeller is reproduced with permission from Peco Publications Rik

ge_rik wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 1:50 pm Probably the greatest inspiration for me was Rev Peter Denny's Trepolpen Valley Light Railway, which appeared in various guises through the 1960s and

Rik

Ditto. There is a chapter in his book “Buckingham Great Central - 25 years of railway modelling” that is devoted to the garden line too. It’s an interesting read. His solution to the low level high level debate was to dig pits at the stations as seen in Rik’s scan above.

Andy

And now for something completely different.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt-olVAQXTY

Peter Butler wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 4:08 pm And now for something completely different.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt-olVAQXTY

Imagine taking that for an MOT.

How on earth did it steer? Or didn't it?

Rik

RylstonLight wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 3:56 pm Ditto. There is a chapter in his book “Buckingham Great Central - 25 years of railway modelling” that is devoted to the garden line too. It’s an interesting read. His solution to the low level high level debate was to dig pits at the stations as seen in Rik’s scan above.

Andy

I must see it I can get hold of a copy - for old times' sake!

Rik

Possibly some of us were influenced by these?.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM4uGgchFnM

Peter Butler wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 8:57 pm Possibly some of us were influenced by these?.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM4uGgchFnM

“A whole train set for under £5”

I had forgotten about Topsy - a really interesting model.

I wonder if there would be a market for a version scaled to the normal "garden gauges" (7/8" maybe)?

Have there ever been any details / photos of the railway it ran on? I think a couple of pieces of track were found at boston lodge, but I am unclear whether there was ever a permanent garden line built....

Not as old as some of the above but I've always been fascinated by the modelling of Mr G Llyffe Stokes.
This gent was clearly no spring chicken when I saw a piece he penned about his garden line in a copy of Model Railway Constructor in about 1967/68. I still have the copy in my store of old magazines.
I would love to see more photos of his garden line.
He was also noted for very fine small scale model buildings on his indoor layout. It was probably he that first piqued my interest in outdoor model rail.

Incidentally MRC was, in my opinion, the best of the model rail press in its time.

invicta280 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:18 pm Not as old as some of the above but I've always been fascinated by the modelling of Mr G Llyffe Stokes.
This gent was clearly no spring chicken when I saw a piece he penned about his garden line in a copy of Model Railway Constructor in about 1967/68. I still have the copy in my store of old magazines.
I would love to see more photos of his garden line.
He was also noted for very fine small scale model buildings on his indoor layout. It was probably he that first piqued my interest in outdoor model rail.

Incidentally MRC was, in my opinion, the best of the model rail press in its time.

Mostly shots of his indoor models, but inspirational nonetheless
http://www.swindonworks.co.uk/george-il ... rtist.html

Rik
A few more shots of the garden on page three - http://www.swindonworks.co.uk/page-three.html

ge_rik wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 7:57 am

Mostly shots of his indoor models, but inspirational nonetheless
http://www.swindonworks.co.uk/george-il ... rtist.html

Rik
A few more shots of the garden on page three - http://www.swindonworks.co.uk/page-three.html

Thanks Rik. Lovely to see his work again.