Innehållsförteckning för January 2026 från Garden Rail

With the plan being to have our eventual railway set somewhere in North Wales, it was clear that slate would form a big part of the traffic on our line. The popularity of home laser-cutters means there’s a wealth of different kits to choose from, even before getting into the realms of acrylics or more traditional metal items; loading up on kits for the test trains at the Llangollen show, our eyes were drawn towards the Wood Valley Works stand. These were very reasonably priced, and, while we intend to eventually build up a full train of slate wagons, we thought we’d get just a couple to be going on with. The kits are excellent quality, with very neatly cut parts; a nice feature were the axle boxes with separate…

I became a model railway enthusiast after my godfather gave me a circle of OO gauge track, an 0-6-0 tank engine and two small carriages when I was six years old. Ever since then, I have been hooked, and seeing G-scale trains running on shelves around model shops and at model railway exhibitions left me with a desire to one day have my own set. Fast forward 30 years and that dream has been realised, thanks to my desire to share my love of model railways with my three nieces; Alicia aged nine and twins Izzy and Jessie, aged five. I started by simply showing Alicia my OO gauge layout and model railway magazines, but I found it was too small for her to play with, as she likes to…

BOLE LASER CRAFT DHR Class One Locomotive 16mm scale This 1/19 scale model is based on one of the eight side tank locomotives supplied by Sharp Stewart of Manchester to the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway for its opening in 1881. As soon as they were delivered, it was realised that they weren’t powerful enough, and the first of the famous A Class locomotives were ordered. The side-tanks spent the next 10 years pulling trains on the flat Siliguri to Sukna section of the line, which had a weak river bridge. Once this bridge had been rebuilt, the eight Class One locos were sold to the North Western Railway in India, where they ended their days at the Dandot Colliery in the Punjab. The model is entirely 3D-printed, with the exception of…

The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway has set its sights firmly on relaying track to Barnstaple, an ambition that is arguably one of the biggest of challenges faced so far among reversals of historic narrow gauge glory. The ‘toy train’, as it was known locally, served the two, 19 miles distanced, North Devon towns, with strings of posh plum and cream coaches hauled behind one, or two sometimes, of the proud, spritely and determined locomotives ‘Yeo’, ‘Exe’, ‘Taw’, ‘Lew’ and ‘Lyn’ - all Devonshire river names, epitomizing the Edwardian taste for stylish high quality. We’re told that no other narrow gauge railway in Great Britain was as highly engineered. So much so that it very nearly bankrupted the contractor, James Nuttall. Sir George Newnes, wealthy publisher of Tit Bits and The…

Garden Rail Resource Bürger & Miniaturen Park, Wernigerode www.buerger-und-miniaturenpark-wr.de Please mention Garden Rail when contacting suppliers.…

When track has been out in the garden for a long time, various parts become corroded and dirty. This happened to one of my LGB points. The result can be that one or more of the point blades are no longer electrically connected to the stock rail. In theory, there are three places where contacts are made. The toe of the blade rests on a contact strip under it, on the sleeper. The side touches the stock rail, and there is a hidden connection at the heel end, where it is pivoted next to the plastic frog. When a wheel tread runs in the converging direction, along the point blade, it should press down the blade to the contact on the sleeper. But, at some position, the tread lifts onto…

Rail trucks While I never liked the LGB pickup, because it is not prototypical at all, I recently bought one with the goal of doing a radical conversion of it. Originally, I wanted to paint it and make it REALLY ugly, but changed my mind. Keep in mind I have nine thumbs, few tools, and no place to work on it other than our garage, where it is too hot in the summer. Anywho, now that it is cooler, I worked on it. The vehicle now sports: • 1 x MG 42 on the roof • 1 x so-called ‘Lightbar” from a Police Cruiser • 1 x Winchester rifle on the bed • 1 x cow catcher from a Bachmann steam loco • I also removed the lamps (it came…

When this 5” gauge coal-fired Class 1500 loco kit arrived from Silver Crest Models, I was reminded of a phrase that the street artist Banksy graffitied onto a model building that he made, which found its way into the Merrivale Model Village in Great Yarmouth, when he did his ‘spraycation’ tour of Norfolk during COVID times. The dry weight of this 35” long (900mm) loco is 51Kg, yet adding the packing material and crate it arrived in brought the overall weight to a whopping 75kg. I could see this project would be massive and the end result would be significantly larger and heavier than the locos in 16mm scale that I am more used to working with. I could also see building this kit would take me way out of…

I’ve always preferred small layouts, and I like to feel that my Pigsty Brewery was a pioneer in this area. However, technically, that wasn’t a micro layout, these must be under four square feet I’m told. I did build a micro tram layout, of which more in another article perhaps, but I do like to have trains trotting around while I get on with life. How to square the circle? Or, in this case, how to circle the square? The answer came from Chris Rennie, who has 3D-printed 2.9” radius 32mm gauge curves. Yes, you read that right - 2.9” or 74 mm! With an adaptor track, these matched Faller Playtrain, and the game was afoot. The Concept As I said, I wanted to have trains running round, but I…

There’s something magical about these glorious autumn mornings, the rails glistening with morning dew, leaves crunching underfoot and watching steam drift through the garden as we steam up for the day… That’s what I love about garden railways: the ever-changing landscape. Plants grow, the seasons shift and nature insists on joining in whether we invite her or not. A neatly ballasted line in May can be half-hidden by creeping thyme by September, moss takes over sidings and rain re-sculpts your landscape. I’ll share with you our successes, surprises and sometimes the chaos of mixing gardening with model railways on the Olive Branch Tramway. I’ll share what’s happening on our line: which plants thrive around the tracks, what’s flowering, what’s falling apart, and what I’ve learned trying to balance realism with…

I own a lot of tools. Several toolboxes full. And I’ll be using hardly any of them to build this fully working 16mm scale locomotive. The good people of Accucraft has conspired to make most of my toolkit obsolete by virtue of delivering a model that can be assembled with little more than a screwdriver and a pair of small pliers. The job doesn’t even take that long. This chassis build was knocked off in a morning, and that includes setting up the photos and taking a tea break. It’s not challenging either – I only made one mistake, using nuts on the two bolts holding the rear bracket, when the bolts actually go into the motor to hold both it and the bracket in place. Fixing this took less…