Andrew

Looking better Although our decking will be replaced by more-durable Indian sandstone paving, the retaining walls are being done in oak timber which I'm told will last longer than I will (so that's alright). The landscapers have given me four upright sleepers on which to rebuild the front of the railway. The bamboos in their pots have been temporarily(?) moved, so we'll have to see if Bamboo Curtain Straight will retain its name or will need to be called something different. And as befits a railway that sometimes represents parts of the north of England, a modest amount of levelling-up has taken place behind the sleeper retaining wall using the pile of spoil in front of the digger. In this photo you can just see the A-frame forming the end of what was the Northern Viaduct, with the bamboo pots still in place. And here is the new work, all ready for me to lay some timber trackbase once the landscapers have departed, hopefully in a few weeks time.

Definitely worth the effort - but before laying the track! I did that with my Peco eleven years ago and the rusty-look rails helped to offset the unrealistic sleepers.

Mark, that track looks great with its proper sleeper spacing (in the photo with the Terrier "Box Hill"). I've been considering using such track, but it (or at least the Peco and C&L equivalents) have much thinner sleepers so wouldn't be easy to fix by pinning. Did you glue yours down, perhaps?

Bamboo Curtain Straight to Desolation Row First day of the project, and the landscapers have made quite an impact. Hard to visualise where the front of the railway went...

Al those soaring bridges and viaducts look really exciting, Thomas. I hope it won't be too hard to clean all the track before each running session. Anyway, I'm looking forward to more pictures of high speed stock operating on your superb railway.

That certainly looks like a fine stretch of curved line now, with good photographic possibilities, Mick. As someone else who hasn't had a running session this year, I suggest you try and clear a couple of days in your diary to remind yourself of the joys of fine weather operating. Then you'll wonder why it took so long!

Temporary suspension of service A sad day yesterday. After over eleven years of happy DGR running, I had to dismantle half the layout to make way for garden landscapers to remove the rotting decking at the front of the railway (and elsewhere in the garden) before installing replacement paving. They will also plant some concrete spurs for me to bolt the new section of the layout to, so the future infrastructure should be on more durable foundations. So for the moment, no more fun days in the sun like the visiting Q1 and King shown here back in 2015.

Yes. A treated timber trackbase is by far the easiest solution, its weathered look is fine, and another eleven years will be more than enough for me!

Rehab While I do like to have running sessions in the winter months, that doesn't seem to have happened this time, largely because of wet weather. So the railway has been suffering from neglect, and yesterday's sunshine prompted a serious effort to excavate it from the leaves and rubbish that had covered the scenic side. This also revealed a number of problems which need to be dealt with - some easier than others. For the first time, the vegetation on both sides of the track has died back during the winter. This has affected both the ivy above the railway and the mind-your-own-business below it. Presumably they will both recover in due course. Secondly, moss has flourished on some stretches of track, which would be fine if a scale overgrown look was required - but it's not. Unfortunately, scraping the moss out from between the sleepers often meant that the scraper just disappeared into the rotten wood beneath. And holes are appearing elsewhere. Not good, although after 11 years it shouldn't be a surprise. And inevitably there are a few rail-end bonds which need resoldering, usually in the most awkward locations. But having cleared up most of the debris, a new section of retaining wall was planted. So there's still work to be done before trains can run. And that's only in the short term, because the garden decking replacement project is due in May and will entail dismantling and rebuilding much of the railway. Hope I can get some running sessions in beforehand...

Looking good. If at first...

Mick, Some superb photos there - thanks for sharing them. The idea of pasteing-in sky and drivers is really promising, as of course one could presumably also paste-out unwanted stuff from any background, indoors or out. I'm wondering if there might be a freeware solution to this which avoids having to go the whole hog on buying Photoshop or similar, as you can't really do that sort of detailed work in MS Paint!

Time to get cracking The bottom of the garden looks a bit overwhelming at present and needs some serious attention. I'm sure there's a railway there somewhere:

I think cable tray looks promising, although as Ba14eagle says, it would be better with the flanges downwards. They mostly seem to be galvanised steel, which should be weatherproof and rigid. The appearance is pretty unappealing, so it would need to be covered with something like roofing felt and/or timber, but could be ideal for straight sections at least.