The UK’s only magazine that’s 100% dedicated to outdoor railway modelling. Expect to see stunning garden railways from the UK and abroad, expert advice to help you create one of your own, show reports plus product news and reviews.
BURSTING WITH CONTENT Welcome to our bumper March issue. Thanks to the inclusion of the Midlands Garden Rail Show guide, and some printing rules I don’t pretend to understand, I’m in the happy position to be able to serve up more for you to read and enjoy than normal. This issue is unusual in that, not only do we have two feature layouts, but I’ve actually seen them in person. Normally, I receive a set of photos, and that’s all I know of the layout. However, I was able to take the photos for Pen-Y-Bont thanks to Steve Howard arranging for me to sneak into Fawley Hill museum, and Loft City appeared at the 3CAG event at Hinkley. Both are well worth a look, which is handy, as they will…
After five years and some 30+ exhibitions, it was time to think about a replacement for my ‘G’ scale, 45mm gauge, Hambleden Valley layout. I couldn’t just make another along similar lines, it had to be very different. The only criticism I had heard about Hambleden was that it was too big to run indoors at home, but also could not be left outside in the garden, so it was neither really an indoor layout, nor a garden railway. Hambleden was fairly unique in using radio-controlled live steam locos on an end-to-end layout, involving lots of shunting of rolling stock. So, this time, I thought it had to be a ‘round and round’. However, it also had to be different from the usual offerings of unballasted track, a nod to…
Like many others, more specifically Eddie in May 2021 of this magazine, I was also drawn to the Peppa Pig Railbus as a candidate to run on rail wheels. At £10 in a local supermarket, it was well worth a punt. But what would it be? A railcar was somewhat too small for its body in my view, but as part of a Permanent Way trolley, well that may be just the thing. Back in the old bad days of East Germany, I took photographs of some likely candidates, so this conversion ended up as a lookalike of one of them. I decided to use an IP Engineering chassis that had been removed from one of my steam trams for not being quite robust enough. Pushed out to 45mm, Delrin…
Intentio might be a new name to Garden Rail readers, but in 4 and 7mm scales, they are known as manufacturers of high-quality building kits. For our sister magazine, British Railway Modelling, I built a small hut from one of its 4mm scale kits as part of a diorama. At the time, I talked to proprietor, Philip Healey Pearce, and he was thinking of upscaling it, so sent me a test version. After a little pondering, he decided to go for it, so it was time for me to assemble my model. One challenge – this is a garden scale model, so it should be at least showerproof. I doubt you’d want to leave it out over winter, but I don’t want to be rushing to bring buildings in are…
Date: 24 February, 2023 Event: Garden Railway Specialists LGB day Venue: 6 Summerleys Rd, Princes Risborough, HP27 9DT Times: 12pm to 4pm Web: www.grsuk.com 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 5pm Web: www.nationalgardenrailwayshow.org.uk Date: 13 May, 2023 Event: Llangollen Garden Railway Festival Venue: Pafiliwn Llangollen Pavilion, Abbey Road, Llangollen, LL20 8SW Times: 10am to 4:30pm Web: www.lgrf.co.ukv Date: 8/9 July, 2023 Event: East Midlands Large…
North Pilton Works did not quite make the 39-step count, as per the 1935 spy film starring Richard Hannay, but is a great excuse to see how many ‘bridge’ phrases and idioms I can work into this article. Footbridges are quite a rarity. This is the first one I have ever reviewed and only the second one that I have built. The first was a pre-coloured plastic G scale kit from PIKO. I had that very bridge on my long-defunct Dovecote Light Railway back in the day, and I can tell you, adding a foot bridge is akin to adding a scenic break from which trains can travel under and emerge from. It also has the obvious advantage of connecting two platforms together, rather than using a ground-level pedestrian or…
