mick

Happy New Year Thomas! That's looking very impressive. You must have a wonderful collection of stock to need such an expansive storage area - and this is the second one! I quite like the term 'parking station' by the way - it's not something we hear too often.

Perhaps this is a possible candidate for the next series of 'Walking Britain's Lost Railways'....? There is a viaduct somewhere beneath all that toppled bamboo! I have since cleared the snow from the bamboo allowing it to regain its upright stance and fortunately there's no apparent damage to the viaduct. These are tough times for garden layouts!

It's been an unusually cold start to 2021 as seen by the following chart which compares the average daily temperatures recorded by my weather station up to and including January 9th for each year since 2012. It's forecast to become less cold from today.

Another day, another walk, but I think it's probably the same Kestrel. Despite the commotion caused by so many people all deciding that a walk is the only thing left for them to do, I managed to capture a few more photos of what I believe is the same Kestrel we saw a few days ago. Certainly it was perched at the top of the same tree so it seems the tree has become it's favoured hunting or lookout post. As I said, there were so many people walking past and youngsters making such a din that it didn't appear to feel as content as it did on the previous occasion and within a few se

You are a braver man than me, though it is now above freezing in this part of the world - but only just!

Perhaps that's something I should know but I was never really all that interested in the classroom. It's a difficult one to answer because when stabled the wagon buffers would generally be touching as the force of the sprung buffer would set them apart. There wouldn't be more than a couple of inches between the face of the buffers when the wagons were in motion so in 4mm scale it would probably be unworkable. Certainly in your lower photo the gap between wagon buffers would appear to me to be too large for an instanter coupling in the normal running (short) position. However, the importa

Pleased to see you've managed to get something up and running. Personally I still feel that DCC offers too many benefits for me to consider battery operation and remote control. As I've said previously, I encounter very few problems with power loss anyway and it takes 10 minutes or so for me to go round and clean the tracks before I can begin running trains. The addition of a stay-alive capacitor to a DCC fitted loco could easily remedy many problems that users often experience but I've not found them necessary even for outdoor running. Still, whatever method we employ to keep our tr

I think it's best to let nature take its course with this one. I've no intentions of running anything just yet so there's plenty of time for it to thaw naturally.

There's no ballast on that section Dave. At the moment the only ballasted sections are along the two viaducts which this morning were still covered with a thin layer of snow. I'm not about to be running anything anytime soon so I'll just leave it to clear on its own accord.

That's another year over and 2020 tops the table as the warmest year in our relatively short records book - 0.4°C warmer than any previous year we have recorded since January 2012. While 2020 may have been the warmest year we have ever recorded it has only just avoided landing at the bottom of the table with the amount of sunshine we have experienced - the total sunshine hours of 1,311 edging above the 1,310hrs recorded during 2017. The rainfall total of 632mm during 2020 was slightly above our annual average of 605mm. December 2020 was our second wettest December month.....

I've not been out in the garden for the past few days but fortunately I came across the following obstruction of the line along Buttlebank before any train movements took place. The snow might be gradually departing but it's left behind some treacherous conditions. I doubt a snowplough could handle this little lot.

We had a lovely walk along a disused viaduct and down to a local nature reserve yesterday. The round trip took us a good 4 hours but it was a fine day in the winter sunshine and with remnants of the recent snowfall lingering on the ground. On our return journey we came across this Kestrel perched at the very top of a birch tree some distance away but with the aid of a monopod to steady the camera I managed to capture the following image, one of several I took before we reluctantly had to walk away. The Kestrel seemed content just to sit there but for us it was starting to get a bit too cold. I

I'm sure I must say this every year but out in the garden these past couple of weeks makes me wonder how on earth we ever manage to run model trains out there. It can be such a cold, wet and extremely miserable place at this time of year. Those sunny Spring and early Summer days seem such a long way away right now when it seemed everyone and their dog had desires on building a garden railway. Most of them must be looking back at our forum now thinking we're completely mad - and perhaps we must be. Anyway to those who have been here throughout and to those who may have visited more recentl

It already seems a very distant memory Andrew. Thank you once again for the recently received 2021 Calendar - I have a growing collection of them now as a permanent reminder of the DGR. So yes, looking forward to next year and hoping for some nice weather to allow us back outdoors. Have a great Christmas and a safe New Year.

Good to see you're still making progress Tony. I'm not sure I'd have the same level of patience or the dedication required to keep me going for such a lengthy time. It's going to look very impressive once completed. Have a great and safe Christmas and a much better New Year to everyone.