craigreading

Hi, Thought I'd take the opportunity to post in the forum as I am a new member! I'm Craig, 35 from Reading UK. I've always wanted to do model railways having had one when I was young on a 6x4 board that I used to lean up against the wall when not in use in the spare room. Since 'growing up' (and I use the term loosely) I've always wanted something a bit larger, and relished the idea of building a large more permanent model railway indoors. Well I am currently in the position to do this now, being older and having my own place, but (there's always a but isn't there), the problem is loft clearance is too low so this leaves the garage (spare rooms are taken up with offices and beds). So for a while I'd been looking into this, and have been posting on another forum for indoor railways. My track plans initially started with an 8x4 board, then a 10x5, then an L shape but the problem was always going to be where to put it. The thing is the garage will ultimately become a room and utility in the near future with some garage remaining at the front (it's quite a large garage, full house length). This means that if I were to put a layout in there eventually it would have to go. This doesn't appeal to me so I went back to boards that I could store and take down, but I think this wouldn't be much fun either. The first question most ask on the forums is "well, what is it you want?". This isn't a good question because what I want is a olympic swimming pool sized model railway indoors, but as we all know there are compromises. So perhaps the better question is what spaces do you have available and what compromises do you need to make to use them? I thought about what compromises I'd make, and what I wouldn't. I want to run long trains, steam locos with circa 8 coaches, the sorts of thing you'd find running on the NYMR, in fact I pretty much want that sort of feel to it. I want a loop, for continuous running, but the ability to drive, stop at a station, etc. Nice to haves? A yard of some description, coaling area and sheds. To do a lot of this I need space and this was when the garden came into mind, it's large enough (not massive but certainly not small), it can be permanent and taken down when I move worst case. Let me describe the garden to you. I think I'm going to use my back garden. The house is link-detached and the rear of the house has just a porch feature in it sticking out perhaps 1 meter or so from the centre of the house. Other than this you can think of the garden as a long rectangle (long edge running along the property walls) around 30 to 40 feet by about 20 - 25 feet (not huge I know). The garden is fenced all the way around (or will be soon) with a gate at the back to give access. The diagram below will give you an idea of how it is setup.