Garden Rail January 2023

NEW YEAR, NEW PLANS The first issue of 2023 sees some important milestones. Starting with the sad news, Barbara Martin, our cartoonist for the last 20 years, has decided to retire. In our Mailbox, you can enjoy both her first, and favourite cartoons. Staying with long-term contributors, Mark Thatcher reviews his past 25 years of projects for the magazine, and picks his favourites. No easy job this, but it’s interesting to see how the hobby has changed, and also be tempted by many of those builds he has brought to us. Perhaps there could be inspiration for your projects next year? Finally, we reach the end of the Peckett build. I often say that my job is to make mistakes, so readers don’t have to, and that’s pretty appropriate for…

To me, one of the greatest joys in this great hobby of railway modelling, in all its scales and gauges, is the number of marvellous friends I’ve made down the years; friendships which will last a lifetime; friendships that reveal a willingness to help each other out; and, friendships that result in wonderful days out to see the work of other friends. It’s this last-mentioned aspect which is the subject of this very modest piece, resulting in Eddie Adams, Geoff Haynes and me being invited to a day’s outing to see, operate and photograph Alan Brackenborough’s O Gauge ‘layout in a garden’. For those who might not know, Alan Brackenborough is one of the finest model painters of all time. In fact, in professional model painting circles, he’s known as…

Have you ever built a piece of flatpack furniture, and had a few pieces left over? With the Peckett, aside from some spare bolts and screws, the box contained a rectangle of gasket material. I knew that’s what it was, it was the same as the gaskets used to seal the end of the cylinders. I wasn’t worried though, after all, the locomotive steamed perfectly well. Right up until it didn’t After half an hour testing, it became apparent that liquid PTFE is not the correct way to seal the joint between a pressure gauge syphon and the boiler, or the sight glass upper pipe and its steam input. Gradually, these joints started to bleed steam, and the locomotive stopped working. Even a non-engineer like me is familiar with the…

I deas of what makes a garden railway vary from ultra-realistic to very freelance designs that look pretty, but are more caricature than prototype. I’d say the Plateway Alpine coach fits somewhere between these two extremes – possibly why I really liked the look of it the moment I saw a photo in Product News. Chatting to company owner/designer/tea boy Michael Murray, I persuaded him that Garden Rail readers would enjoy a build, and he generously provided a kit for me to have a go at. The instructions are comprehensive, but cover several different models in the range, which is a little confusing. Having said that, a bit of reading while looking at the parts helps. Like most kits, it’s not rocket science, you just need to think about what…

This tale starts back in the 1980s. I obtained a copy of The Cane Train, which described the Sugar Cane lines in Fiji. This New Zealand publication contains a wealth of details and drawings, but it was the relatively unremarkable centre cabbed loco that caught my eye… The prototype The loco was one of a batch built by the Crossley Brothers, who were based in Bed-ford in the 1920s. Small 0-4-0 machines, weighing 5 tons, they were apparently able to haul 60 tons on the level. To Crossley, they were L type. Two of these locos were purchased by Dorman Long in 1924/5 (records vary) for use on the contract to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I have seen a video clip showing one at work on the bridge itself.…

Date: 9/10 December, 2022 Event: Steam at Rowington Venue: Rowington Village Hall, Rowington Green, Warwick, CV35 7BU Times: Friday 2pm to 7pm, Saturday 10am to 4pm Web: www.johnsuttonmodels.co.uk Date: 29th January, 2023 Event: G Scale Society Kent Group - Winter Meet Venue: Teynham Village Hall, Belle Friday Close, Teynham, Sitting-bourne, Kent, ME9 9TU Times: 11am to 4pm Web: www.gscalekent.co.uk Date: 11 March, 2023 Event: Narrow Gauge North Venue: Pudsey Civic Hall, Dawsons Corner, Pudsey, Leeds, LS28 5TA Times: 10:30am to 4:30pm Web: www.narrowgaugenorth.org.uk Date: 11/12 March, 2023 Event: Midlands Garden Rail Show Venue: Warwickshire Event Centre, The Fosse, Radford Semele, Leamington Spa, CV31 1FE Times: 10am to 4pm Web: www.warwickshireeventcentre.co.uk Date: 15 April, 2023 Event: National Garden Railway Show Venue: East of England Arena, Peterborough, PE2 6HE Times: 10am to…