shaung75

Helping mum sort out some her harage over the weekend and found my old Thomas - I got the set for my 4th birthday making it 28 years old. Set up a test loop, and after a juddery start he runs better than my son's brand new Percy and Thomas, and some other locos I have. Comparing old British made and new Chinese made, I'm genuinely surprised at what little difference hornby have made in nearly 30 years - the only noticeable difference is tue lack of traction tyres on the new. Order a few spare parts and he should be as good as new

Thanks pppp, I like that idea of having a loop there and will probably go for that as Phase 1 to get something up and running quickly, and then extend it to the original plan as time and money allow. That 'path' from the chickens to the brown bin is actually caused by the dog and changes everytime the lawn is mown Cheers Shaun

Haha I'll keep that in mind! Although I have experience falling (I don't think a parachute will deploy safely from that height though), the picture was taken from the comfort of the bathroom

There's some good advice to absorb in those replies, thanks chaps. Just spent a small fortune in Wickes in preparation for the week ahead, so now we just need the weather to be good. I hadn't thought of doing that for the section of track in front of the patio as the track will be at patio height so I'm not sure about the need for a bridge there, but it's exactly what I'm planning to do for easy access to the chickens and maybe a second for access to the veg plot. Was thinking a wooden footbridge for the second, but I'll decide on that later once I see how high the track will be at that point. I intent to slate/gravel everything to the left of the track down that side so I don't have to worry about the mower - it's only a small petrol thing but it's heavier than it looks! That in all honesty was my initial plan and even had planning permission for the line to go around the outside of the wife's veg patch so that it entered the shed from the back left rather than the front left. Having the lines run along the fence minimises the opportunity to have a long sweeping bend and I really don't want to re-site the chickens - I'm genuinely surprised at how destructive they are! Good to know about the plywood, I've opted to go down that route using 18mm treated with a covering of roofing felt. I'm actually looking forward to the maintenance side of things. I'm employed full time as a web developer and I also get a fair amount of freelance work too which keeps me stuck indoors all day (and sometimes night), so having a reason to get outside can only be a good thing. When things are up and running I'm going to try out making a maintenance train using a combination of wagons on the market (Dapol, Hornby etc) and maybe a bit optimistic but see if I can come up with a track sweeping wagon using some old Lego Tecnic and a bottle brush. Ambitious but it's going to be fun giving it a go Speak soon Shaun

The blank canvas. Forgive the mess, the storms of late haven't been kind!

Thanks for the replies. I must admit I have looked into recycled plastics and I particularly liked the Flicris system, the downside is that I just don't have the cash to do it unfortunately - I'd need about 10 of their ladder kits which at £40 a go prices me out. I hadn't thought about downpipes though as a viable alternative though, thanks for the suggestion. How would you attach the board to them though? Would you put runners between the posts and attach the board to those? Cheers Shaun

Shed fiddle yard plan

Hello all After lurking around for a while I thought I'd hop on and introduce myself. I'm Shaun, a web developer based near Sleaford who loaths train journeys but is fascinated by trains and model railways and has been since a kid. When I lived with my mum I fancied the idea of a garden railway as the 6x4 board up in the loft didn't really do it, but I had neither the money or the permission to do it. Here I am at 32 with our own house, a little boy obsessed with "CHOO COO!", sorry, Thomas (he's not quite 2 yet), and a garden big enough to have a decent run. I decided to buy him Hornby's "Percy and the Mail Van" starter set to gauge his reaction and he loves it - he could sit there for ages watching him go round his little loop. I turned to the wife and said as a bit of a joke how great it would be to set up a garden railway and have it go round the whole thing. "That's a good idea". You're joking right? I wasn't expecting that! So since then I've been in the planning stage... Gauge - was always going to be OO. Never really liked the look of the bigger stuff and I like the idea of seeing a diesel trundling around with a massive rake. Track - Open to suggestions, but from research it sounds like Peco SL100 would be a good choice? Power - DCC. I've never used DCC before and although all I'm planning is basically two continuous loops which doesn't call for the additional functionality, I imaging voltage drop would be an issue giving poor performance at slow speeds. The thought of a constant voltage appeals to me. Plus it's the way the hobby is going anyway so why not follow suit? Control - Open to suggestions on this one too. Having a look around I like the sound of Hornby Railmaster with eLink, I've seen that you can connect up a phone or tablet which'll give me a remote control wherever I am in the garden. The shed where the laptop will be has an ethernet connection and I've set up a wireless access point for the garden (did I mention I'm a bit of a geek too) so I'm not worried about the phone and laptop losing connection. Layout - As I mentioned above I'm planning on just having a loop of double track going in and out of the shed where there'll be a fiddle yard, so nothing complicated. Where the straight diagonal is near the path/bins there'll be a station (hopefully long enough for 6/7 coaches) with a few buildings lit by solar LED's. I may in the future loop the track around more flush with the path for a quarry area - I can't describe how much limestone is underneath our lawn so it'll fit right in! Construction - The baseboard will be mounted on posts quite low to the ground. This is something that I am worried about due to the rot/dirt, but it has been decided for two reasons; 1, the boss (wife) wan't it low enough that it won't hinder access to the veg patch or chickens, 2, I just prefer the look of garden railways that I have seen which are closer to the ground. The garden has a gentle slope to it so the track will be pretty much level near the patio (so about 4" off ground level), and will be at a guess 12"-18" by the time it enters the shed. That I don't have an issue with as I wanted it low in there anyway due to wanting a workbench as well. The baseboards were originally planned to be decking planks due to initially thinking they would be cheaper, but it ended up working out to be the same as 18mm ply (2400x1200) if I were to divide it up into straight pieces, but without being limited to just straights. Just need to make sure these are the plans I want to stick to, then construction starts during next weeks week off. It's quite sad how much I'm looking forward to having a project that doesn't involve the internet... Thanks for reading Shaun