Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2024 i Garden Rail

A few weeks ago, I took up the offer of some old, bound copies of Garden Rail. Sadly, this was an estate disposal, and when I arrived, the family took me to the shed workshop to collect them. The garden railway had long gone, replaced by a ¾ inch traction engine and a 7 ¼ locomotive. What was there was plenty of detritus. ‘Take anything you like, otherwise, it’s all going in the skip’. Feeling helpful, I cleared the drawers and tool racks from the wall. Most of it was, let’s be honest, junk. A diecast Land Rover with a badly mashed back wheel. Bits of (I think) radio control helicopter. Off cuts of plastic and metal, too tiny to be of any use. Back home, an awful lot of…

Well, after a brief absence, here I am again, and also, due to a recent medical event, I am indeed on the wagon too. In fact, my doctor advised me to have only one glass of white wine per day, to which I replied, ‘But I spill more than that!’ I am doing my best to get going again and what better way than to build and embellish this new steam lorry kit from Modeltown? Now, they have some form in this department, as back in the June 2012 issue of Garden Rail, I reviewed an overtype and a horizontally-boilered flat wagon from them. Whilst these are sadly discontinued, I am pleased to still have these models, and as you can see from the finished photocall, the trio line-up is…

I needed an extra G scale loco for a forthcoming exhibition and had neither time nor finances to come up with anything very special. So, when I saw a cheap second-hand Lehman 0-4-0ST, in the form of an American tenderless logging locomotive, I decided to make a purchase and quickly modify its appearance. The loco was in a special Christmas livery, although I have also seen them in a plain black livery. My intention was to make it look as if it had come from this side of the Atlantic, as the wheelbase seemed suitable for a freelance 0-4-0 locomotive of British design. I imagined that I would have to remove or modify the cab, raise the level of the boiler and possibly fit a saddle tank of a different…

One point on my line is located inside one of the loops, and throwing the lever (I use those from Tenmille that I have had for some years, and are quite robust in the great outdoors) required stepping over the line, so quite inconvenient. I wanted to be able to throw the point lever from a position close to other points, which meant a gap of about 75cm to bridge. My solution is basically what is known by railway modellers as ‘wire in tube’. I use a length of aluminium tubing purchased in metre lengths from a well-known DIY store. You could also use plastic tubing, provided it was well anchored to avoid flexing. The tube was fixed to the track deck with eyelets of the appropriate size, only three…

ACCUCRAFT 1:20.3 scale Freelance Baldwin style locomotive ‘Mabel’ The latest locomotive from Accucraft is a freelance narrow gauge steam locomotive in 1:20.3 scale, 45mm gauge. The model is based on a 3ft gauge Baldwin style locomotive, and will be available in both kit form and ready-to-run. Specifications: 1:20.3 scale, 45mm gauge, butane fired, water gauge with blowdown valve, pressure gauge included, piston valve gear, goodall valve included, safety valve under steam dome, knuckle couplers, blind middle driver for tighter curves, Min. Radius TBA, separate tender Colour Options: • Black with white lining • Green with yellow lining • Maroon with yellow lining • Blue with white lining Anticipated prices Kit: £1275.00 RTR: £1495.00 Add on options: Rear truck: £60 Pilot truck (Requires extended frames): £100 Accucraft UK Ltd. PO Box…

The very first article on my garden railway appeared in the September 2007 edition of Garden Rail. It began ‘It was the August Bank Holiday 2005 and, whilst wandering around a newsagents shop in Ulverston, South Cumbria, I came across a copy of Garden Rail and bought it’. The rest, as they say, is history. After being inspired by that magazine, my interest in 16mm scale was rekindled. As a youth back in 1979, I had attempted to build a line in the cellar of our then house, having no garden at the time, but soon lost interest after many derailments of my Archangel Sgt. Murphy, one coach and one open wagon, which I had purchased off Tom Cooper, who was based in Kendal at the time. The trackwork was…

Do you want to run more purposeful freight trains on your garden railway? Then you might find the following of interest. Although I use computer-based devices to generate goods train manifests, they are based on simple card-index and a semi-randomised dice-rolling systems that anyone could try. Readers of this journal and viewers of my various YouTube videos will no doubt be aware that freight handling is taken very seriously on the Peckforton Light Railway. To this end, I have accumulated around 80 items of goods rolling stock and generated rosters for my goods and mixed trains with a range of computer programs: • A free-standing program that runs on Apple Mac or Windows computers • An app that runs on Google Sheets • A program that runs on my old…

I have been in the garden railway hobby for over 11 years now. During that time, I have built up an eclectic collection of motive power. From the very start, I was attracted by the Regner ‘Easyline’ locomotives. They appeared quirky, worked well under manual control, and were powerful for their size. The first one I purchased new was a Vincent, and this was followed in due course by three more locomotives, all bought second-hand from eBay and other sources. The collection includes Vincent, Willi and two Konrads. They are all fitted with water top-up systems, Regner whistles and 3/4-inch pressure gauges (I cannot see the 1/2-inch variety). In addition, the Willi has wooden boiler cladding, and the Vincent gained a Chuff pipe and tender. Both Konrads have spectacle plates,…

‘It’s all Phil Parker’s fault’, stormed Nelly the sheep. Before we go any further, let me explain. The sheep on my railway are heavily unionised and radical to boot; if you fancy applying for a job as a sheep on The Tramway, there is no chance, it’s a closed shop. As you have no doubt gathered, Nelly is the shop steward. Anyway, to return to the story, it all started when the Editor’s blue pencil fell through a photograph of my sheep riding in a six tonne WHR wagon. It was intended to be used in the article on the World of Wagon Loads published in Garden Rail in June 2023. ‘My members had spent all day doing their eyelashes and making themselves look beautiful for the photograph just to…

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With our garden railway slowly growing, and a circuit of track laid, my husband Ben and I felt that the time had come to have a think about landscaping, and some simple buildings. There are many excellent kits available from retailers, but we were leaning towards this line being a bit more of an extension of our artistic practise, rather than strictly being a model railway. Having buildings that were handmade in some way seemed to fit the ethos of the line better. I work as a Technician in an art department of a large secondary school, and one of my specialisms is ceramics, which I studied in college. A couple of years ago, we were doing a project with our Year 9’s where they had to design, make, and…

Sheep are something you can hardly miss in Wales. The climate is ideal and those hardy little Wesh breeds thrive. Sheep come in all shapes and sizes. The larger breeds, such as the horned Jacob’s Sheep will stand at around 26” (660mm) to 40” (1m), while the hardy Welsh Mountain Sheep without horns will stand around 20”(500mm) to 30” (750mm) tall. I found that a sheep needs to be made in three pieces, the four feet and the tummy, the left-hand and right-hand upper body. The mould was made over a plasticine pattern from a low-cost silicone rubber compound from B&Q. The body parts are made from P38 car body filler from Halfords, squeezed, and I mean squeezed, into the mould. The parts were trimmed and joined with more P38…

The garden railway trade, in fact the model railway trade generally, is well supplied with different huts to adorn the lineside of our railways. However, some people needed portable huts, especially the crews operating traction engines and road rollers. Owners of these expensive machines needed to move around, and nipping home at 6mph wasn’t really an option when working on different farms at harvest time. Hence, they took their accommodations with them. At this point, the sharp-eyed will note that Bole describes this kit as a ‘Showman’s Caravan’, but I’m calling it a ‘Travelling van’. Looking at prototype photos, showmen tended to have far more ornate living accommodation. Indeed, I’ve visited a couple of modern examples, and the insides can be described as ‘luxurious’. At a scale 9ft by 5ft,…