Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i Garden Rail

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…

I have always had an interest in model rail-ways, and when the children left home, found the space to build an N gauge layout. My interest in G came about after a visit to the Hobby Shop in Faversham, where I bought an LGB starter set, assuring my wife that a circle of track could be incorporated into the garden, which she admitted was due a refresh, for the benefit of the grandchildren. You can guess the rest! Getting the electrics sorted on the track showed quickly a number of issues to this novice of garden railways. Soldering connections to LGB track is not quite as simple as to N gauge track. Also, the prospect of having to clean tracks is not too enthralling, especially when new plants may be…

Nine years ago, I finally got around to making a railway in our small back garden. At the time, I was 65 years old and worried about all the digging. I started to work through how to make an accurate hole. With a dodgy memory, I wrote everything down as it occurred to me, then another brew-up, followed by a bit more thinking. I admit that took a lot of tea brewing, and biscuits, but it was pleasant. The track was planned to be in two sections, one at the top of the garden to be done first and then one at the bottom. There were many priorities to sort out, and eventually, I opted to buy some Peco SM32 track first, lay it on the garden in a circuit,…

16mm scale Penrhyn slate wagon Following on from HGLW’s 3D-printed Penrhyn Slate Quarry wagons, the decision was taken to produce another variant. This model is sized to match the old Atropos version of a Penrhyn slate wagon, and will also serve well for folks wanting to portray a mixed rake of Penrhyn wagons with the types that are now available from HGLW and Harecroft Models. The kit includes a wooden floor and glass-filled nylon Binnie wheels. Available in 32 and 45mm gauges. Price: £23 for one £100 for five Houstoun Gate Locomotive Works 66 Buchanan Crescent, Houstoun Gate, Livingston, EH54 7EE www.hglw.co.uk…

SPRUNG POINTS I am about to start building the railway, having done a lot of planning on the sofa, and propose to use a ‘sprung’ point at some location so that trains are consistently routed in a particular direction. Your article on lever framed points in the January 2023 edition was interesting, and I wonder if there has been any articles in past years on sprung points (or indeed on electronically controlled points - for those more remote locations) and if not, whether you have plans to do a short article on how to do it, the materials to use, etc. in the future. I feel sure that there is definitely someone out there who has done it before! Peter Trowbridge MAKING PEOPLE I enjoyed Dave Skertchly’s article ‘Project Phil’…

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…

On 1st January 2020, in a break with tradition, Roundhouse announced three locomotives to be delivered over the coming three years. The Darjeeling C Class Pacific was the third. Its designer described the decision to model the prototype as a ‘no brainer’, filling a gap in the Roundhouse Darjeeling Himalayan Railway stable. It was first displayed at the National Garden Railway Show at the Peterborough Arena in June 2022. First deliveries started in October 2022 and 40 have already been dispatched to eager owners, some as far afield as the USA. But before looking at the model, a little about the prototype. The DHR placed an order in May 1913 with the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow for two Pacific tender locos to run on its new Kishenganj extension…

Loft City Central Railway is the culmination of a small person’s dream that was never realised during his own childhood. Growing up as the youngest of six children in the post-war era of the early 1960’s, who, having only one older brother and four older sisters, never got the opportunity to build up his own model railway collection in his formative years; instead, having to settle for a share in the slot-car racing game of the era, a ‘hand-me-down’ Scalextric! So, early on, a lifelong promise was made to himself that if he was ever lucky enough to be blessed with a child and at that, a son of his own, then he would buy for him the biggest and best train set that he could afford at the time.…

16mm scale Ffestiniog Railway ‘Van 1’ kit The latest addition to Resurgam Rolling Stock’s range takes the form of Ffestiniog Railway ‘Van 1’. Often referred to colloquially as the ‘Curly Roof Van’, the current full-sized example is a 2004 built replica of an original 1873 Brown & Marshall Bogie Van. Produced in collaboration with Will Curry, the kit is designed with proven hidden slot and tab construction throughout for easy and accurate assembly. The tricky ‘curly roof’ sheet is a hybrid design, featuring individual planks cut right through, but held together with small tabs to form a highly flexible fret, which can be easily applied and formed to shape. Lateral and longitudinal alignment is provided by a central row of slots, locating with tabs on the roof ribs, and a…

It may not seem like it, but there is little difference between designing and building a garden railway, a loft railway, or an exhibition railway layout. In each case, you need ideas, you need to develop skills, have the stubbornness to overcome problems and a good sense of humour for when everything goes wrong. I have seen some amazing garden railways in my time. There is something very special about watching a loco and a rake of coaches wind its way through real scenery under natural light, in and around planting. You can have live steam trains, electric ones, clockwork, etc – whatever takes your fancy. The railway can be any scale, any era and any location. Alas, finding the space needed for a permanent setup in the garden is…

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…

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…

Times are hard on the tramway. Passenger traffic has dried up as the Little Old Ladies of Llatireggub save their pennies to pay those inflated winter fuel bills. I noticed that ‘Excelsior’, my 40-year-old 0-4-2T, was famously built for the Kerry Tramway, a logging railway in Wales close to the English border. Could I save the tramway by going into forestry? Knowing nothing about logging railways, I bought a book about the Kerry Tramway and other timber light railways, which is published by the Plateway Press. The book, however, is short on operational detail and in particular how to load, unload and couple the wagons. All is great at the fixed saw mill yard, or transhipment siding with installed gantry cranes, but what about at the ever-shifting end of steel…

Trade information on new products for the garden railway modeller… If you are a trader with any new product, then contact phil.parker@warnersgroup.co.uk Please mention Garden Rail when contacting suppliers LGB G scale ‘Rhätia’ Class G ¾ Steam Locomotive The ‘Rhätia’ was delivered from SLM in Winterthur as number LD1 in 1889, the first locomotive of the Landquart-Davos Railroad. Weighing in at 30 metric tons, it had a maximum speed of 28mph. Initially used on regular service trains, the small class G ¾ locomotives were soon pushed into less challenging workings until they became surplus to requirements, after complete electrification of the RhB network at the start of the twenties. In 1928, number 1 was retired and intended for a planned Swiss railroad museum. In 1970, it was moved to the…

16mm scale Wooden Coal Tub Kit The design has been inspired by videos of a Taiwanese coal mine, where these little tubs can be seen being hand shunted by a couple of local labourers into a wagon tippler and being hauled by a very Heath Robinson ‘locomotive’. However, the model is very generic and would have been easily built in your industrial line’s ‘works’. The kit is a combination of laser-cut plywood, and laser-safe MDF together with many 3D-printed nylon components. Of particular note are the ‘through the body’ riveted straps. These poke through small holes in the body sides to accurately locate the strapping and to also provide raised rivet heads on the body’s inner surfaces. The kit includes both hook and dumb buffer couplings (main picture) and a…

My garden railway has gained a couple of goods wagons recently. I really should be addressing the shortage of coaching stock, but, by accident, these two have jumped the queue. Starting with wagon No 2, I took the advantage of subscribing to Garden Rail, and at the time you received a free gift of this open wagon from North Pilton Works. This is the first time I have built anything from the company. I liked the way the wagon has opening doors and imitation of brake gear on each side of the wagon, despite them being a little on the chunky side. Looking on its website this particular wagon is available as a kit, complete with either 32mm wheels or 45mm metal wheels and brass bearings for very reasonable money.…