Hampton Garage Railway / Test Track

[ba14eagle]

It seems like ages ago that I last run the HFR (last week of July to be precise ) and with the Winter upon us, I was thinking I need somewhere undercover to do some running. So, over the last couple of weeks, my Father and I have been working on a new railway, inside my garage. The plan was for it to just be a test track, but as IanR warned, plans are being hatched for it to develop into a bit more.....

I am working on having a single track all the way around, with 3 loops on the wider boards, under the window. As far as materials were concerned, I had a lot of well treated timber stored in the roof of the garage (had originally been earmarked for an extension of the garden railway which never got planning permission from the domestic supervisor ) so that has been used for battonning on the walls, with loft boards for the top - these have been treated too.

We have nearly completed the U section around the walls of the garage and with any luck, by the end of next week, we should have the lift out section across the opening completed (Mrs H. still has to get her car in there too )

Here are a few pics showing what has been done so far. The untidy back wall will be tidied up soon.

[IanR]

Not bad for three mornings work Iain. Looks like being an excellent test track!

I was down your way last week, I travelled to Westbury on the train to pick up a signal post finial that I'd bought on eBay!

Ian.

[Riddles]

Where are you cutting the hole into the garden? You had better make space for a helix if it is on a different level.

[mick]

Good to see details of your new project Iain. At least you'll not have to contend with the weather inside the garage (providing the roof doesn't leak and you've got some thermals for the winter time that is!) Looking forward to seeing it develop so keep us updated on progress.

I've had similar plans for a year or two now but still haven't got round to doing anything about it. That's not all down to my laziness - we've had a pretty bad year but I'll be speaking about that soon elsewhere on the forum.

[ba14eagle]

After little work taking place in the garage over the Christmas and New Year period, a couple of mornings work has seen the test track 99.5% complete and ready to run (hopefully).

The .5% of unfinished work is just an additional "belt & braces" power feed that needs completing and only has been left that way because my soldering iron gave up the ghost this morning! I dont mind - it was a fairly useless piece of kit anyway, so I now have the excuse to go and buy something better

Hopefully, tomorrow I will run a few test trains - depending on the success or failure of that, I might take some more photos or video even

[ba14eagle]

Well, things havent quite gone as planned with test running

The fixed part of the track all ran fine (once I replaced an errant metal fishplate with an insulated one ), but the lift up sections didnt have any power.

Further investigation to be carried out this week to see if the problem is in the connecting plugs or in the joints where spurs are taken off the feeds.

However, I did manage to line half of the inside of the roof with a damp barrier, which will hopefully keep the odd leak at bay

[mick]

Oh no and I was so looking forward to the possibility of photos and videos

I'm sure you'll get the power loss in the lift-up section sorted without too much trouble. The damp barrier sounds like a good idea - perhaps even a flood barrier depending on where the garage is located.

[ba14eagle]

The lack of power to the lifting sections has been rectified. The spur that was taken off another track feed, had not been crimped sufficiently for the connections to be made. Problem now solved.

I managed a short session of light loco test running today which was 95% successful. One minor thing to look at - some locos that only pick up on one bogie, were finding a dead spot in one of the points. This can easily be worked around but will be added to the list of final fixes, for another day. Back to work tomorrow for 6 solid days, so no real opportunities for any more running until a week today

I still have some work to do on the garage itself, to complete its little make-over, and will then think about doing some ballasting and a bit of scenery

Sorry theres no photo's (doesnt seem much point at the moment) but there is a short video on YT and hopefully, soon, in the video gallery.

 

[mick]

Pleased to see you've sorted things out and have been able to get some trains running - just what I'm going to have to do, especially now I've seen and heard your class 58. That's one class of loco that I don't have a sound chip for so it looks like that will have to go top of my shopping list. The garage gives a nice lengthy run - it actually looks longer than I thought it might and the curves look a decent radius too. I've never considered the garage as a location for a layout for the simple reason that it's jam packed full of stuff that would need to be rehoused elsewhere and there's nowhere else for it all to go.

There's really no need for much scenery I don't think, but I would agree on the ballasting - I think I'd have to do that too.

I've added the video to your collection elsewhere on the forum but I've also edited your last post to include it there too so that others don't have to go searching.

Looking forward to further progress (and being able to offer some progress of my own eventually).

[ba14eagle]

Well, I had a good running session this morning, with 3 trains out on the track.

I had not had an opportunity to run my MGR set since completing it, so that mada a few circuits behind the 58 and the 37.

I then gave my new Bachmann "Polybulks" a spin out, behind the 45, in a shortened "speedlink" formation. Although I bought the weathered version, these still need a bit of personalisation and enhancement - join the "works" queue please!

Finally, the current extent of my NSE Mk2 Waterloo - Exeter set (7 coaches - should be 9 when finished) had a run out behind 50044.

I am glad to say that all the stock ran very well, except for 1 or 2 of the MGR's, which all probably need their wheelsets changing to be honest.

This evening, I have been out to the garage and ballasted about 12 ft of the single line (all along the station section), which I had painted the rail sides & weathered the sleepers on. Even when wet, this looked quite good, so I am now going to do the rest of the circuit. The lifting corner sections will need to wait until the summer (when the glue will dry a lot quicker) as I cannot really leave them down for too long without taking the garage out of use to the car and we have very limited off road parking here

I made some good progress on Sunday with manufacturing some pretty sturdy hedgerow, which will assist in stopping trains crashing to the floor, and tore up quite a few scourers, so as to start doing some bushy backdrops. Thats the next job, so I hope to be able to do a bit of that over the next few days.

Trouble is, all this work in the garage, means I aint doing the detailing and weathering jobs on locos and wagons, that are still outstanding in the "works" queue

[mick]

Sounds like you've been having fun in the garage which is just as well considering the number of wet days we've had of late. Although the rain has been pretty light up in my part of the world we are currently on our 17th consecutive rainy day.

I like the look of the new Polybulk wagons but I'm trying very hard to resist the temptation to get any. Not sure how successful I will be on that one.

I've just been looking for the photos from your latest running session but I can't seem to find them.......... How many MGR's have you got now and have they all been weathered?

What are your plans for the summer (assuming we get one)? Will the outdoor layout take priority or can you see the garage layout becoming something other than just a test track?

[ba14eagle]

Mick

The garage wont ever take over from the garden railway, although I might think twice about that when I'm on my hands and knees in the plants, cleaning the track, come the summer! (The only thing that might upset this sentiment is if I ever became unable to get to the rear of the railway, due to ailment / incapacity)The other thing is, the garage is quite often open for long periods, during the day, so I'm not going to go over the top due to the unfortunately high risk of vandalism or theft.

The MGR set is complete at 18 wagons - short I know for an expert of such things like you - but thats all I need for my train.

Hopefully, sometime this evening, there will be a video uploaded to YT, of the session, complete with the above mentioned MGR set.

The Polybulk wagons are very nice. There is one oddity though that I havent got my head around. Bachmann list 2 versions in "Traffic Services" livery - weathered and pristine. However, the 2 versions carry 2 different versions of the livery - why? Why not do both livery versions in weathered and pristine? I certainly would have bought both and in a larger quantity...

[mick]

ba14eagle said:

....The Polybulk wagons are very nice. There is one oddity though that I havent got my head around. Bachmann list 2 versions in "Traffic Services" livery - weathered and pristine. However, the 2 versions carry 2 different versions of the livery - why? Why not do both livery versions in weathered and pristine? ...

I've no experience of the Polybulk wagons or the liveries they have appeared in. In fact until you just mentioned it I hadn't realised that there were two similar, but different, liveries. Just had a look in the Bachmann catalogue to see if that sheds any light on it but they list three different versions of the Polybulk wagons with no added information regarding livery details.

18 MGR's is a decent sized rake so I'm looking forward to seeing the video. I think I've got 10 spares should you ever feel like adding to them! In fact I'm going to have to get some sorting out done because I've got a pile of loco's, wagons, and coaches to dispose of when I get the time to do something about them.