Innehållsförteckning för November 2023 från Garden Rail

A CHUFFING GOOD DAY Through the last year, my local model railway club, the Leamington & Warwick MRS, has been busy turning time and money into an impressive outdoor 45mm gauge line. Mark and his team moved many tons of rock, gravel and concrete, and installed quite a lot of outdoor plywood, followed by many, many metres of track. Along the way, lessons have been learned and some bad language used when exceptionally hot weather has made rails expand more than expected, and exceptionally damp weather has shown the wood not to be as waterproof as it was supposed to be. Eventually, I’ll twist some arms to have them tell the full story of all this. All the problems faded away a few weeks ago when the track was given…

I had not intended to provide buildings for Lynton, my modular garden railway (GR337), as storage in the garden shed of quite large buildings along with all the track modules would be difficult. I have built additional track modules, so a clear-out of the shed had become a necessity, and I can now see where a shelf can be fitted for storage of a couple of buildings. As a youngster, my OO experiences of building model buildings were with Airfix kits that came with some little pots of bright coloured paints, and although building the kit was straightforward, the painting was too gaudy and unrealistic. I was saved by Superquick kits made from colour printed card, and became quite successful in building these, including the complex station terminus building. Probably…

Garden Rail Resource Boot Lane Works - www.bootlane.org.uk Houstoun Gate Locomotive Works - www.hglw.co.uk PDF Models - www.pdf-models.co.uk Phil Sharples - www.philsharples.com Please mention Garden Rail when contacting suppliers.…

It is hard to believe that it was in Garden Rail April 2020, some three years ago, that this project started. The objective was to see whether a set of signals could be activated by the locomotive driving over the trailing points. It was thought that this would cause the over-centre spring fitted to Peco points to determine the direction of the next train and set the signal. The signal and its function is not necessarily authentic, that is up to you and your ambitions for your personal layout. To me, signalling on the narrow gauge always seemed a bit hit-and-miss, literally. An accident at Glan-y-Pwll Junction in 1897 highlighted the lack of operational discipline when, after a head-on collision, which it seems may have bent the buffer beam of…

The main inspiration for my garden line was P.D. Hancock’s wonderful Torlum Hill Light Railway, which he described in The Railway Modeller in 1991 and ‘96. I was in Edinburgh in 1996 and visited him. Such a nice man – so welcoming! Unfortunately, in the summer months he suffered from a skin condition caused by a mysterious tiny red spider, so our time in the garden was limited, and I didn’t see his wonderful collection of live steam locos in action. Never mind, I enjoyed a couple of electric locos running, admired his hard work and craftsmanship, and breathed in the character of his railway. Background In 1996, I’d just levelled a patio area at the bottom of our garden with a three-foot brick retaining wall and a 20 x…

The Thin Controller, having just finished a most enjoyable lunch in the village, was now walking down a long, narrow, overgrown footpath back to the Beeches station. As he tore his trouser leg on a rampant bramble for the second time that week, it occurred to him how much easier and quicker his walk would be if only there was a footbridge across the quarry to the station. It would only need to be about 60ft in length, so something quite simple would suffice. But, bridges tend to be expensive, and he knew the directors would be loathed to spend a lot of money on one - perhaps the workshops could construct something suitable? It so happened that the directors (my father and I) were aware of a quantity of…

At the start of last year, I had been looking at getting into garden railways for a number of reasons; My indoor ‘OO’ layout had grown too big for the garage, I wanted to get outside and, above all, I wanted to have a go at making a locomotive for myself. With the abundance of easy-to-build kits and resources available to us in larger scales, it means home builds, kit bashes, or kit builds seem much more attainable than in indoor railways, and less fiddly little wires or fixings to contend with! After re-evaluating what I wanted from my hobby, and a bit of research as to what was available, I decided to sell off my indoor railway and look at building a locomotive from a kit as a starting…

Having moved my modelling from indoor Icelandic HOe on a bird table (don’t ask) to G scale in the back garden, I thought I would have loads of space. Naïve? Absolutely. I soon discovered that I only had room for a five-foot loop and I wasn’t going to get much of a train in using standard LGB or Bachmann equipment. A USA combine kit was 20” on its own… I wanted an eclectic mix of rolling stock to illustrate the essentially tourist ‘fun’ nature of my Swanage & Southern Light Railway – SSLR or ‘South Swanage’ as it’s branded. Hence, two US bogie coaches or four standard LGB four wheelers were not going to make it very exciting, and the guvnor (the wife) wanted ‘quirky’. Some research pointed me at…

Normal service resumes Humble apologies if you were waiting for this article last month. Sometimes life throws you several curve balls, and I was too busy being an acrobat trying to catch them all. Hopefully, I am now back on track. Before I press on with the build of the body, just a gentle reminder that the chassis motion and smoothness have been much-improved by dispensing with the round tube supplied in the kit, acting as bearings and spacers for the cranks and axles. I used some 3mm brass tube instead, which not only will last longer but cause less friction and drag on the chassis than the original Tufnol tube supplied. This is a massive improvement. The eagle-eyed among you may have seen that the original green cylinders on…

EDRIG PERFORMANCE I read Dave Skertchly’s article on steam loco performance with interest. I will confess surprise at his findings, as my hypothesis (old science teacher here!) expected a significantly higher tractive effort for an Edrig. Edrigs weigh about 3.5kg (wet) - this should have allowed more friction at the wheel. However, it appears this was not the case! My data indicates that my Edrig (‘Nella’) can handle a train weighing 4 to 5kg on a reasonably level layout without slipping, including around curves of 38” radius made from nickel silver rail. this is despite greasy rails - Something unavoidable when one runs steam locos! All I can suggest is a di° erent sort of degreaser/cleaner might be more effective at cleaning the railhead. Maybe a wipe with methylated spirits?…

BOOT LANE WORKS 16mm scale Bagnall style saddle tank kit, ‘Toffee’ Released with the less experienced modeller in mind featuring almost entirely screw and nut construction, this tiny 16mm model is the second of Boot Lane’s “Sweetie” range of smaller locomotive kits. The 16mm scale kit is built from 3D printed filament and resin parts, and laser-cut acrylic and utilises a variation on Boot Lanes’ adaption to the Binnie Engineering wheel creating a practical locomotive driving wheel of just 20mm in diameter. The firebox has been resin-printed in one piece for greater detail, as are the chimney, steam dome, sandbox, etc., along with a selection of resin-printed detail parts. It comes complete with a 3-6volt motor, nylon worm gears, Binnie 20mm wheels on 1/8” stainless steel axles, and all necessary…