cleanerg6e

Today to give my aching back a rest I removed the last of the track on the boards and on the Hebel blocks. I was a little heart broken at the thought of having to throw all the new track from the blocks in the bin. I found that the cement/ballast mix had adhered to the blocks very well but with a little persuasion came off the track quite easily. So after a cuppa and a bit of thinking I wondered if I was to use my council high pressure water blaster on the work vehicle if that would remove the ballast/cement that was still adhering to the plastic sleepers. My pressure water blaster comes with four changeable nozzles, three for water and one for detergent application. Discarding the detergent nozzle the other three are wide, narrow and jet. I tried the narrow nozzle and turning the lengths of Peco Streamline over so that the sleepers were upper most I blasted the track with the high pressure water. Low and behold the cement/ballast mix just disintegrated and what looked like horrible track with cement/ballast clinging to it came up brand new. I turned the track over so the rails were upper most and gave that side a quick hit. I even did a set of points taking care not to blast the little spring and they too came up like new and fully functional. Once the remaining stumps are removed I can make a start on demolishing the Hebel block work. They will come off the cement base easily enough but I'll have to hire an electric demolition hammer (the mains powered version of the air compressor powered "jack hammer") to split the aggregate concrete up into small enough pieces to enable me to shovel it into a wheel barrow and tip it into a skip. As for a name for the new railway, I haven't a clue and I'll cross that railway bridge when I come to it. Roy.

In photo three of the stumps, on the left of the photo are small stumps. A builder friend of mine said that they weren't deep enough in the ground ( the ones that supported Faulconwood station and loops) so I made them deeper as you can see with the stumps on the right of the photo. I've been cursing that builder because the ones with the small amount of concrete just needed to be pushed over and out they came. The the others needed to be dug out with a mattock, spade and a large heavy crow-bar to lever them out of the ground and a back breaking task it's been. I have to be glad that only some are deep in the ground as I have 54 stumps to remove, OMG. The new boards for the new railway in the garage will have to be made from scratch as the old boards aren't wide enough as the new boards will be 2ft or 600mm in width and I won't be using a wooden supporting frame in the traditional sense except across the roller door at the front. I'll be using metal supporting brackets off the garage wall for the rest and will have three levels of railway with an incline from the bottom board to the top board using DCC Concepts Power Base stainless steel magnets. The gradient will be 1 in 40 or a 1 inch rise every 40 inches. Every board will be scenic not just the top level boards. I'll have two lift out sections one for the side door which will become the main entry/exit and the other one will be for my airbrush spray booth/modelling bench and I will retain my NCE Pro cab radio for control. When I start something more permanent for the new layout I'll end this thread and move to the indoor section of the forum. Roy.

There is a video on you tube of an indoor/outdoor railway in Tring and the man who built it said that some of the track was over 30 years old and had been on several layouts so obviously it had never had any ballast in it's life. His railway is mainly in his garage with a run out into his back garden. I'm pretty sure I shared a video of it which shows a low resolution cab ride from a first generation DMU with added sounds of the real thing. He too has said that he's had to replace all the outside timber. It may sound strange but I'm rather excited about the prospect of a new railway in my garage. Where I live is pretty open to the public and when on holidays I was always worried about the outdoor railway as it could be easily seen from the road in front of my house. A couple of times I had people just wander in off the street to have a look. I always thought that vandals could do the same thing. Roy.

As members on this forum have asked to see some photos of the demolition progress well here they are. Roy.

Hi all the demolition continues. The weather is a bit "how's your father" or dicey at the present time with passing showers. Well I've thought more about a replacement railway as model railways have been with me since I was a little boy 40+ years ago. I've been looking increasingly at my garage to house the new railway. In the local paper is a house for sale and the garage had been used as a home hair dressers salon but the real estate info said it wouldn't take too much to reconvert it back to a car garage. On you tube is an indoor layout built in Northern Ireland in a garage with roughly the same dimensions as mine. The man who built it built his own 12 level helix but then realised that once the trains were in the helix they were out of view. So he scrapped the helix and has built a nolix instead. That's the railway running around the garage and gradually gaining height in the process. For him a 1 in 50 gradient or a 1 inch rise every 50 inches. He runs up to date UK trains so diesels which have good pulling power. I however run a lot of steam which as we all know when they come to a gradient of any significance they can't climb it. So having a look on you tube I had a good look at the DCC Concepts idea of the "Power Base". There are stainless steel magnets under the track and magnets also under the locos. I think what it does is it pulls the loco down onto the track. The effect is startling. A Hornby Duchess can only manage 3 coaches up a 1 in 30 grade in it's unmodified state. But fitted with magnets it can pull 8 coaches without a slip. Now whilst this is meant for indoors it could be handy for the outdoor modeller in that is could be used in a garden shed with the top boards being for the running line out into the garden and a second lower board to store all the stock which is not in use. Here's a video of the Hornby Duchess on that 1 in 30 gradient. Whilst on you tube take a look on the DCC Concepts channel for the video on how to install the "Power Base". Roy.

Well the demolition has started with the removing of the old rails. Naturally I have to unsolder the bus wires and the bonded rail joints. So far I have 91 individual pieces of Peco set track double length straights. The canted curves will go to the dump as they are weakened with too many holes in them. I didn't use much code 100 streamline mainly only on the curves. All the points and many were medium radius have been saved. The large radius points were given to a friend who built a layout with many old and badly working points. They are all in top working condition having been greased for outdoor use. It's a back breaking and heart breaking task getting 54 galvanised/concreted stumps out of the ground. So far two are remaining in the ground with the top wooden leg having broken off in trying to remove them. The remaining metal tube protruding from the concrete has been cut flush with an angle grinder. Next is to order a walk in skip and I borrowed a trolley to make it easier to get the stumps into the skip as they weigh around 50kgs each. I may have to hire an electric jackhammer to get the concrete out of the garden level part as the concrete is higher than the surrounding ground. Many of the rocks that I concreted in with be broken up into smaller rocks to make garden boarders. As for a new layout I've been looking at the garage as a possible location, but it will need modifying with insulation in the walls and ceiling. It has no power so that will have to be done. A small inverter air conditioner will also be needed as will a whirly ventilator on the roof. Naturally the garage is much smaller than the garden railway measuring only 17' long x 11 feet wide. Another possibility is a room in the house which is 12 feet long by 10 feet wide and was once the main bedroom now a storage room. After over 30 years in this house I've gathered a lot of what can only be termed JUNK. It's worth sweet FA and will go into the skip that I'll hire. On the rolling stock front most of my LNER/eastern region stock will go as will a lot of the Southern stock and some of the standards. I will keep the GW/western locos and LMS/midland locos and coaches and the diesels. Some of the freight stock will go too. Roy. PS I don't know if anyone wants to see photos of the demolition.

Summertime here for my railway at least is the dormant period as it's just too hot to operate. But I have discovered something that I hoped wouldn't happen due to the care I took with construction. My painted exterior ply is starting to rot away and the way I have constructed my boards means I'd have to rebuild entire boards. So for me there's only one thing to do. Demolish the outdoor railway. It's heart breaking but I don't want to have to rebuild boards every few years as getting the old boards out is a major operation as they weren't designed to be slid in or out of place. So the Springbridge and Faulconwood Railway will soon be no more. I may have another garden railway in the future but I'll see how I feel. However an indoor railway is a greater possibility at the present time. I've amassed a large collection of stock and a lot of it but not all will be sold. Roy.

That looks wonderful Mick and I'm thinking of starting an indoor layout myself and all will be revealed in the fullness of time. Roy.

Hi Tony I got some private owner wagons by Dapol and a DVD: For The Love of Cars. Lets hope the P2 doesn't fall to bits like other Hornby locos do which in my case is the valve gear. Roy.

I ran out of Peco metal fish plates so a trip to the local model shop was in order. I also bought some Hornby close couplings for coaches code R 8220 which come 10 to a pack which is ok unlike their metal wheels which also come 10 to a pack meaning you can only do two and a half coaches per pack. I bought some K&S rod which in the size I wanted is a three pack when I only wanted one. I also bought some Tamiya paint stirrers. Having a look round the shop which is a veritable Aladdins cave who should also be in there shop?, my brother. I thought he was in Queensland on holidays. I was also after a couple of Dapol (old airfix) station canopies but they didn't have any. I also wanted a Bachmann 108 two car DMU in green with speed whiskers but they only had ones with small yellow warning panels. If I can I like to shop at this model shop due to trying to keep the local model shop alive. Many others in there feel the same and they do a roaring trade. The shop is no where near the size of Hattons or Gauge Master which remind me of a modellers supermarket but one can buy and have a chat to the staff which provide people with free coffee or tea. I noted that in one of the loco display cases was a D11 4-4-0 No. 62690 "Lady of the Lake" which made me smile and think of Monty Python's movie The Holy Grail. For those who don't know the movie you have King Arthur telling the peasants how he is King. "The lady of the lake dus give me a sword called Excalibur" etc. The peasant replies " Listen mate strange woman lurking in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government". "The power to rule comes from a mandate of the people, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony". "I mean you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you". The whole time the king is telling him to shut up and eventually grabs him whereupon he says "Arrh now we see the violence inherent in the system, Help Help I'm being repressed. The king throws him onto the ground and says, "Bloody Peasants!!" Roy.

Skaledale and Scenecraft are made of resin and are totally suited to an outdoor life. Most of the large buildings in G scale are made of resin. Ours are smaller but that makes no difference as mother nature doesn't recognise the concept of scale or gauge. When first released often the structures were hollow on the inside but now buildings like signal boxes have a resin floor in them for a OO gauge signalman to stand on. You would have to drill a hole in order to light the building or sometimes the roof is removable but you'd still need that hole in the floor to pass a wire through. Be careful in drilling resin as it's nasty stuff so wear a face mask. Roy.

Plants that go pop? We have seeds here from trees that only germinate in the intense heat of a bushfire. The heat of the fire cracks the seed pod. It makes me giggle every time we have a bushfire where I live the local greens come out of the wood work complaining about the destruction of the trees and how much it's going to cost to replace them. Whilst they're arguing about it mother nature just gets on with the job and does it herself. A few weeks to a couple of months after the fire there is new growth coming out of the ground everywhere. Roy.

As most would know I have hinged wooden covers on the raised part and I now have polystyrene on the near to the ground part to protect the railway from the intense heat we get in summer and to prevent wildlife (parrot birds) from damaging the track work. If we get high winds I place paver type bricks on the covers to prevent them blowing open, but only the covers which open to the east as our high winds blow hard from the west. Roy.

Yes he has done well Andrew and Tring is where the telephone was first tried out. Tring Tring. The same with statues as in "Hello is statue":lol:. Roy.

I found this video of a British OO garden railway on you tube which has the main part housed in a garage and runs out into the back garden. Although the camera is low resolution it's a good run done from a 1st generation DMU with sounds from a real DMU. Roy.

In the last post I forgot to mention ( due to senility) that I bought a second hand EE type 1 D8134 from Hattons 2 weeks ago. I've had another type 1 D 8158 for a few years now and have always procrastinated (big word for me) over buying a second loco. For ages Bachmann didn't have any type 1's in their original green only BR blue examples. I picked it up this morning from the post office and it's been running on my gauge master 'rolling road' which is only DC for 30 mins in either direction to bed in the gears. I only put it on the 'rolling road' due to there being no marks on the wheel treads. So it may have been bought, stored in it's box and then sold. It came with the complete paperwork too. I like the Howes Models type 1 ESU sound chip so I'll order one from them as this loco has an 8 pin socket. It will run in tandem with my other type 1 and the decoder will be addressed D 8518 and should sound good with two type 1's whistling and thrashing round the railway although it maybe a little over powering as D8158 produces more than enough sound on it's own and can easily be heard from the back of the house. ONLY when I've once again got a full circuit will I post a video of the two type 1's in action. Roy.

If I was to visit Ian (asking your permission first of course) I think I'd have to remove my shoes not just to walk in the house but also the garden as it looks soooo clean. As for your railway slipping to the bottom of the forum and being forgotten, no one in the right mind could ever forget your wonderful garden railway. Mine yes, yours never. Roy.

Hi Ian, Thanks for the information on the island platform as i intend to have an island platform on the long straight next to the colourbond fence. The platform itself is no problem being made of hardwood it will be primed and painted all over and will remain on the railway all year round. I may have to scratch build a station building. As for the rapid drying cement/ballast mixture it is more rapid drying cement than ballast and the glue mixture is Prep polystyrene based glue mixed with water and meths. Although it goes on with a light blue colour to it, it dries clear. The rails are covered with lengths of polystyrene to protect the rails from our heat. According to a friend who lives in Diggle, he was talking to Trevor Jones who invented the rapid drying cement and ballast mixture and Trevor has found that with frosts the ballast sometimes breaks up due to the freezing/thawing process. We don't get deep penetrating frosts here or snow. It seems that this method will only work on masonry bases the trick being to try and keep the ballast granules covered with rapid drying cement. If the application of the glue washes away the cement from the ballast I use a small strainer and gently cover the ballasted track in a thin layer of rapid drying cement only. I clean the rails surfaces with paper towel to remove cement from them. I think it will last as some parts were done over twelve months ago and have remain solid with no breaking up of the ballast. So it's had a full year of all our seasons with no detrimental effects so far. Although unsightly I think perhaps even in the UK polystyrene on the railway in winter would help to protect the permanent way for those using this method. Roy.

Gorgeous photos Ian and I love Thamos the Tonk engine. The garden is looking very NRM like and who knows they may make you an offer on some of your collection. The garden shed is now very railway like. Perhaps you could patent the design and sell it to other people who'd like something a little different to the run of the mill garden shed. On the photo of the Thamos the Tonk engine what buildings did you use to create the island platform. It's seems odd to me that there are many stations in the UK where you have island platforms yet all the major manufacturers ignore that fact and only seem to produce country branch line station buildings. Only Superquick does a island platform building but it's useless in card for an outdoor railway. Roy.

Some lovely photos and videos there Andrew. I've never had bonds break like that. If mine go they just drop off on one side in the winter. But then again we don't have the really low temperatures that garden railways experience in the UK. It surprised me in that Mark Found DVD on the garden railways with his mentor David Pratt saying that bonding the railways outside was not easy in cool weather. But you don't have to heat up the entire length of rail just a small spot where you're going to attach the bonds. Roy.

Oh yes and before time runs out A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL THE MEMBERS AND GUESTS WHERE EVER YOU ARE IN THE WORLD HAPPY 2015 TO YOU ALL. ROY.

Just got home from work, such as it is. Start 5pm, finish 7pm get paid 4hrs. Start again in the morning 5am and finish 6.30am get paid another 4hrs and that's the split shift completed. I think I may need a lie down don't want to exhaust myself. Just checked the ballast and it's as hard as a proverbial rock. Tony check the spark plug gap if it's incorrect the mower will be a bugger to start. Also check the air cleaner if it's clogged with dirt it starves the engine of oxygen. If you have a 4 stroke mower you'll need to cleaner the foam air filter with petrol and once cleaner and dry soak in clean oil, squeeze out the excess and reassemble air cleaner. When I first visited the UK in 2000 I had fish and chips at Stamford. I wasn't impressed. The oil ran out of the fish when I picked it up and the chips were soggy. Now I bought it at a fish and chip shop and that's all they sold. My local fish and chip shop also does sandwiches, hamburgers, a variety of cold drinks, crisps, ice creams and you can eat in or take-away. In 2007 I had fish and chips in Oundle and they were fantastic. I had a meal at the George pub in Oundle in 2007 and 2000. On the first visit the food was mediocre to put it politely, but in 2007 it had changed hands and the food was awesome. Much cheaper than in 2000 and mountains of it. Also Tony I will be having 4 tunnels on my redo bit, but I have to lay and ballast the track first before I make the tunnels. Roy.

Well much more to do and it's sunny and still unlike lately which although sunny has been windy so it blows the ballast about....no good.

The glue soaks in quite quickly so a number of coats are needed to get the ballast rock hard. Here's a photo after the second coat.

Next I brush it out gently to get a nice even finish then I pour the glue/meths and water mixture on with an old plastic tomato sauce bottle. The glue is blue in colour but drys clear. Here's a photo of the first soaking coat.