Garden Rail December 2023

SEASON’S GREETINGS OK, you’re reading this in November, and I’m writing it in October, but this is the December issue, so time to mention the C word – Christmas. Us modellers are both difficult and simple to buy presents for. Difficult because the things we really want, as opposed to a pair of socks with steam trains on, are made by companies that most people have never heard of. Easy, because there are so many interesting things that we’d be delighted to find under the tree. Who doesn’t wish to increase their collection of laser-cut wagons? Plenty of scope there, for gifts in all price ranges. Just ignore the reminders that last year’s gifts are still in their packing… This is where Garden Rail can help. Casually leave issues lying…

As a kid, I spent hours flipping through the handful of LGB catalogues I had. It wasn’t the products themselves that enticed me, but the images the garden railways people created. My collection was small but I’d do my best to create aspects of them with the track and stock I had. The curves were tighter, the siding emptier and the buildings required a bit more imagination, but I still had a lot of fun. My head was always filled with different ideas of what my layout could grow into one day. Two decades later, in 2021, that childhood dream came true when my wife Nikki and I moved to Jersey and broke ground on the HSBA Garden Railway. This is our story. Let’s start with a few key stats…

A chance schlep through a well-known auction site provided me with a cheap and cheerful G scale modern image coach at very good price from East Coast Railway. I was on the lookout for some modern image because, with my fevered imagination of an alternative world, the forerunner of the Welsh Highland Railway, the Portmadoc Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway has survived as an electric railway, running from Beddgelert up to Capel Curig and on to Betws y Coed. This was originally a proposal by The North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways Company, and, in my imagination, it became part of the PBSSR, running in conjunction with the WHR. My imagination also allowed me the possibility that during the Colonel Stevens period, he might have bought two Crochat Autorails as an…

It all started from a love of Lego and trains. I grew up in England and loved playing and building with the famous plastic bricks, and always wanted an actual Lego train, but was never able to get my hands on a set. Fast forward 33 years, and I find myself with a cabin in the mountains just outside Los Angeles, in a village charmingly named Arrowbear. I had just finished a remote control off road track with my girlfriend on another part of my property, which included two flower gardens and a water feature. In that I added a waterlily and 13 Goldfish, all named Fred. After this, I couldn’t stop thinking about the other corner of my piece of land, my love of trains, Lego, and how pretty…

The complex we were staying at in Madeira had a library where you could exchange the book you had been reading while travelling for someone else’s travelling diversion. Among the books on offer was America’s Railroad, The Official Guidebook by Robert T. Royem, which was the history and museum guide of the Durango & Silverton narrow gauge railroad. I borrowed the book, which was a very interesting read. One of the chapters it described the lines ‘Galloping Geese’; road vehicles converted to run on rails. One of the illustrations showed the first ‘Galloping Goose’ made, which used a Buick touring car as a base vehicle. This conversion took place in 1931 at Ridgeway on the 3-foot gauge Rio Grande Southern Railroad and it was used as an inexpensive way to…

Date: 25 November, 2023 Event: Steam in Beds Venue: Eaton Bray Village Hall, Church Lane, Eaton Bray, Dunstable, LU6 2DJ Times: 10am to 4:30pm Web: www.bag16mm.org.uk Date: 9 December, 2023 Event: Steam at Rowington Venue: Rowington Village Hall, Rowington Green, Warwick, CV35 7BU Times: 10am to 4:30pm Web: www.johnsuttonbooksandmodels.co.uk Date: 16 December, 2023 Event: HSBA Garden Railway – Winter Wonderland 2023 Venue: St. Mary, Jersey, JE3 3DS Times: 12pm to 8:00pm Web: www.hsbagardenrailway.com Date: 2-3 March, 2024 Event: Midlands Garden Rail Show Venue: Warwickshire Event Centre, A425, Southam Road, Leamington Spa, CV31 1FE Times: 10am to 4pm Web: www.meridienneexhibitions.co.uk/events/midlands-garden-rail-show Date: 27 April, 2024 Event: National Garden Railway Show Venue: Stoneleigh Park, Kenilworth, CV8 2LG Times: 10am to 5pm Web: www.nationalgardenrailwayshow.org.uk Date: 11 May, 2024 Event: Llangollen Garden Railway Show Venue:…