Month: May 2015
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Video: Driver’s Eye View
So here it is, filmed on test run day (25 May), a complete circuit of the line in 2’39” shot from a train hurtling along at a scale 4 to 5 mph. I’ve found it’s an excellent way to view all the flaws in your track laying.
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Closing the Loop
With half the track laid, and one tunnel built, phase one was almost exactly half completed. But I hadn’t yet dug the second (more ambitious) tunnel or cut the turf for the line down the western side of the wall.
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The Northern Tunnel
I used the ‘cut and cover’ method for tunnel building. It’s advisable for tunnels on garden railways to be less than two arm-lengths long, if you want to be able to recover your derailed train. That’s fine, my tunnels are mostly to hide the tight radius curves, as well as punch through the hedgerow.
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Motive Power
With a wagon already, and even some track to run it on, I now needed some motive power. I’ve already revealed my aspiration to run live steam… So I didn’t want any steam ‘outline’ locos that weren’t actually steam powered (I feel weirdly fundamentalist about this, not sure why). But I’d like to run a…
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Laying Track
With the Eastern ledge completed, I was ready to lay the first pieces of track.
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The Eastern Ledge
The track will run in front of a dry wall made of old red sandstone – but at this point it is about 200mm above lawn level. I needed to build up a base for it – and, because I like the look of this rough and crumbling wall, I decided to build a low…
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Trackbed and Badgers
I’m worried about badgers. Sure, lay track on soil or turf, and you’ll soon have problems even without any wildlife becoming involved. A couple of rainy or frosty nights later your trains will be rolling up and down newly emergent humps and hillocks. But badgers could really exacerbate the problem. I read plenty of advice…
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Wagon
I got me some wheels. I bought a wagon kit before I even began construction on the railway, because I wanted some track to play around with whilst planning. As it happens, Track Shack (who I’d recommend for their extremely prompt service – order before 3pm and it comes in next day’s post) give free…
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Site Survey
I’ve been asked for photographs after my last post in which I described the chosen location for the railway. Well, it’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words, though these aren’t great photos, so they might only be worth 7 or 8 hundred words.
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New Territory
The story so far… At the end of my gripping previous post on where to build my railway – I ended on a cliffhanger. Two possible locations, both suffering the limitations of my narrow, steep, garden. Which would I choose?