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Hello from Cumbria


Dav2
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Hi, found this place after seeing a video on youtube from mick (I think). Always liked the idea of a garden railway, just never really thought it possible due to the usual wet weather we get. And especially not with 00.

However, after seeing the video and looking round the forum it seems very possible. Mind blown. 

 

I already had a small temporary railway at home. That often got packed away. But recently bought and sold items and converted to DCC. All Hornby. Still a relative novice to the game. However I really wanted to make a permanent railway with all the scenery. That was the plan. In the attic. However the garden has opened up a whole new game I would love to try. This is now the goal. 

 

So here we are. 

I'll have many questions, which I'll prob end bumping up some old posts. Sorry for that. Until I can find the correct way to go. 

 

Another side note is this could be held up somewhat. Currently selling house and looking to move. However the COVID-19 situation has held everything up. 

Once we get back to normal, things will hopefully move forward much quicker. 

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Hi there and welcome to the forum. I'm pleased you found us.

OO gauge outdoors is certainly possible though successful operation depends on careful planning, especially if you're looking to the long term. I have an attic layout as well as the garden layout but find the garden layout more enjoyable as it seems more realistic to operate outdoors where you're faced with much the same challenges that the real railways face. I enjoy the challenge.

You mention wet weather and that's something you have to take into account - even more so I guess with you being based in Cumbria where I expect rainfall totals to be much higher than here in South Yorkshire. There will be many days and perhaps weeks where you won't be able to run anything but somehow they're all forgotten once the sun comes out and you've got trains on the track again.

With a likely house move on the horizon I doubt you'll be able to do much just yet and who knows how long the current situation is going to take to resolve itself before things can get back to anything like normal. In the meantime feel free to ask as many questions as you please and someone will doubtless be along to respond.

 

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Hi,

My advice to anyone starting up is to search through this forum and find a railway you like and the copy it. This sounds unimaginative, but there is so much to learn when building a garden railway it makes a lot of sense to follow in someone else's footsteps to begin with. 

Having build a shelf based railway, I'm about to start on a ground level one. This time I'm using Mick's techniques of using thermolight blocks.

While you wait on your house move one task you could practice is soldering bonding wires to rails. Its essential element of a garden railway and a pain in the arse. I have written a How To Guide on it. Best of luck.

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39 minutes ago, chris said:

My advice to anyone starting up is to search through this forum and find a railway you like and the copy it.....

I agree, you can certainly get ideas and inspiration from looking at what others have done with their layouts and while you don't have to copy it exactly you can copy the basic outline. There's a choice of ground level (nice for those with back problems) or elevated, or even a combination of the two depending on the layout of your garden. It's your garden that will probably dictate what you can or cannot do. I have a sloping garden so to avoid gradients, which is always a good idea with an outdoor OO gauge line, I had to build partly at ground level and partly on elevated boards.

Then there's the choice of single track, double track or more - (even a combination of gauges in @ba14eagle case). Whatever you decide on my advice would always be to keep it as simple and basic as you possibly can. Points might mean prizes to some people but outdoors they can often spell problems so try to limit their use though there's no need to avoid them all together.

One thing I would highly recommend is a storage area, shed or outbuilding. You can treat the interior almost as you would an indoor layout with points, junctions, stations or whatever, leaving the outdoors as your main running line where you can sit back and watch passing trains in a natural environment. You can even do some shunting in there when it's raining outside.

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One thing I wish I had was an indoor section of line for storage of trains. I've always got pleasure from (effectively) the 3 railways I have built, but have never had the luxury of an indoor section on which to store trains. This has always been a bit of a pain to me - not only because you have to lug boxes full of stock outside, but yesterday, for the first time, I was hooking up lots of 3 link couplings on my O gauge wagons! Obviously, any outbuilding where expensive equipment is stored, will need good security.

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  • 9 months later...

Well believe it or not, I've now moved house, finally. Garden is a tip. So as the weather improves the 1st job is to get the garden done out and features built in to eventually accommodate my 00 railway. Who would have thought this Covid-19 was gonna last this long?

Hope everyone has stayed safe.

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Good to hear the house move was successful despite the difficulties we've all had to endure over the past 12 months or so. Hopefully things will start returning to some kind of normality over the coming months. Just a shame at the moment that the weather is so poor as there's little chance of making much progress outdoors as it is.

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