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the Dorking Garden Railway


Andrew
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Thanks, Tony.  Passenger trains on the DGR are normally no longer than nine coaches because that plus an engine will just fit into the headshunt:

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Southern Memories

David H. brought a few guest locos to visit last week, and these nostalgic photographs ensued.  Did the sun always shine in the 1950s?

 

This is an S15 and a BR 4MT at Northdown Sidings:

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The Wrenn version of "Clan Line" is still an excellent runner, even if it can't hold its own against modern equivalents with regard to detail.  Seen here running from Sycamore Curve onto Foxdale Bank:

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This is a Lord Nelson class loco, "Lord Anson", complete with bogie tender, passing Sycamore Lodge in dappled sunshine:

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Germany once more

David again dug into his seemingly inexhaustible supply of German locomotives to bring some previously unseen examples into the light of day.

 

Here a Prussian 0-8-0 pilots an unidentified Class 50 2-10-0 across the Northern Viaduct

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Prussian 0-8-0 and Pacific:

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and a somewhat cleaner Pacific:

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  • 1 month later...

OLD PHOTOS

Yesterday I dug out some old lineside photos, mostly 35mm slides from the 1950s, and was pleasantly surprised at how little the colours have faded!

This is Jubilee 45611 carefully negotiating the pointwork as it passes Throstlebeck Sidings.

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Here's the same loco caught on Foxdale Bank

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Not sure who took this old B&W print.  It may have been famous railway photographer Ivo Peters, judging from the Bentley in the foreground.  It's a BR Standard Class 4MT on a goods train, obviously at Throstlebeck Sidings once again - maybe one of Ivo's favourite spots!

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This is another of my old 35mm slides; a goods train crossing the Northern Viaduct, probably hauled by a Standard 4-6-0.

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  • 3 weeks later...

A less than personable visitor (the loco, that is!)

Yesterday saw a return visit by Ivatt 2-6-0 tender loco number 43018.  In her original double-chimney version she sadly doesn't win any beauty contests:

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But she ably hauled an impressive load of ten bogie parcels vans, seen here on Foxdale Bank:

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Here she is running tender-first with the return working on Sycamore Curve:

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And again, appearing anachronistic in her British Railways livery but hauling private owner wagons:

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Moving to a different Mogul, here my resident Southern N Class catches the late afternoon sun on the Northern Viaduct:

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Yes! I knew we could rely on Andrew to mitigate the sense of drought in relation to forum activity and deliver us a selection of operational photographs.

I quite like the double chimney look of 43018 and also the tender half cab. I don't have an Ivatt 2-6-0 among my collection and I very much doubt that I'll acquire one any time soon but she certainly looks at home on the DGR.

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  • 2 months later...

Back in the late summer I noticed something had been vandalising one of my Peco buffer stops:

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Good job each side was pinned down. 

But I decided a more robust solution was needed.  This seems to have done the trick:

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Of course, another solution would have been to extend the headshunt to form double track all round - but that requires rather more work.

 

 

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You will have to make sure that the springs are well oiled to prevent them from rusting up solid, but it is definitely a good idea to use Hornby-Dublo (made in Liverpool). It was all very strong and solid. I'm hoping to use the diecast through station in due course. I've been buying up platform extensions when I have found them at a reasonable price.

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Hi Andrew, have to watch the wildlife, there was a bird like the size of a crow peaking at the track on one of my modules, a bird could of pinched the piece, the problem with outdoor layouts any scale., love the pics keep them coming,

Have a  Merry Christmas and Happy new year, we are going off for our first holiday in 26 years,, good to get away from the house for 10 days leaving on Sunday up the  north coast Caloundra.

Tony from down under keeping on moving ahead.

 

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On 12/11/2017 at 16:39, Riddles said:

You will have to make sure that the springs are well oiled to prevent them from rusting up solid, but it is definitely a good idea to use Hornby-Dublo (made in Liverpool). It was all very strong and solid. I'm hoping to use the diecast through station in due course. I've been buying up platform extensions when I have found them at a reasonable price.

Yes, petroleum jelly seems to be preventing them from rusting solid so far.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This has been an unusual Christmas, as it was the first time in many years that I didn't need anything for the railway from Father Christmas or the family.  Instead, I need time to run it and work on it, not more kit.

But I do recall that Christmas 1962 was particularly exciting.  My railway (which then was Hornby Dublo, 3-rail) saw the arrival of a much needed freight loco, the ex-LMS Stanier 8F 2-8-0 model.  There were one or two hiccups at the time.  Firstly there was a delay because the model my father had been sold turned out not to be the more recent ring field motored version which I wanted, so that had to be exchanged at the shop.  Once the right version was acquired, somehow the plastic coupling on the rear of the tender got broken in transit, requiring the loco to be sent back to Meccano for repair.  But eventually, some time after that Christmas, we were in business, and what a great model it was at the time.

Within ten years I had managed to find someone to swap me a 2-rail chassis for my 3-rail one, so then we were all set for the future.  But the following four decades saw life intervene, and the loco was confined to its box.

At last the loco has been able to come into its own on the DGR.  There are some photos two years ago on this thread:

https://www.oogardenrailway.co.uk/index.php?/topic/354-the-dorking-garden-railway/&do=findComment&comment=13058

or a couple of pictures here:

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Merry Christmas and happy new year 2018 Andrew, yet again  top pics, that 2-8-0 steam loco I have came from my late Uncles collection, has never being run by the look of it, looks like she can pull s decent size freight train and how many coaches .

How is the cold  weather in the UK, can send some cool wind our way, now it is too hot to work in under the pergola 33 degrees , humid but not as bad as yesterday, 33 degrees again tomorrow, not much work on my layout till it is cooler, plenty of projects to work on inside the nice cool house, working on a  water line 1/87 scale Ro, Ro ship DFDS Corona seaways she takes containers as well  as trucks be part of my layout scene.

Tony from down under keeping on moving ahead

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Having long wanted a Black 5, the right version never seemed to be around - until now.  She arrived this week, and is awaiting front steps and brake links to be installed.   Fills a key gap in the DGR's motive power.

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As the sun was shining today, I decided a first photocall was in order.

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It will be better once she actually starts running - and I get to play with the TTS sound.

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One modification I've made straight away is to reduce the distance between locomotive and tender.  It's strange that Hornby produce a fine model with such an obvious flaw as that vast overscale gap.

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She certainly looks a lot better with the close-coupled tender.  All Hornby need to do is to put an extra hole in the existing drawbar to give scope for much greater realism.  As it was I had to make my own inelegant substitute from a bit of scrap metal:

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Love the new addition to the DGR Andrew, it's one of my favourite Hornby models and yes, they do look better when close coupled. I can't believe it's more than seven years since I got my first Black 5 - just had to look back at my old videos to see when I first captured it on film. (Do we still say film these days..?) I can't remember if mine have the same type coupling bar.

I remember having to add some additional weight to my first one in order to get it to haul a realistic load and managed to get a decent show with 10 coaches in tow. Mind you, the old Selby layout had a fair gradient for the loco's to deal with but according to my records it ran with half a dozen straight out of the box. I bet the smokebox/boiler on that one is still loaded with 5p pieces or whatever I used back then!

Good to see you've had some sunshine too as it's been in very short supply round these parts lately. Let's hope it's not too long before you can get 45116 coupled up and in service.

Oh, and a big thank you for my annual calendar which I received just before we went away for Xmas and then completely forgot to thank you for so I'm doing that now. Thank you!

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Thanks for that, Mick.  You're welcome.

Down here in the sunny south of England we don't get much snow.  In recent years we've only had an occasional minor scattering of white stuff.  Today's shower wasn't much good either - not the light, deep, floaty stuff that looks good in photos, but rather soggy and wet.  Even worse from a photographic point of view, because the garden railway is overshadowed by trees, the lines were completely clear.  But I set up some pictures mid-morning, which turned out to be just in time, as all the snow had disappeared by early afternoon.

Here's the local train on a rather unfamiliar route (temporary track laid across the middle of the lawn):

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Closer inspection shows there aren't many passengers on board today:

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Perhaps this new location has possibilities!

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But before long, the loco was getting too wet and the photographer too cold, so further efforts were abandoned before any damage was done.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Black 5 Inaugural Run

This looked like being the first dry-ish day for a while, so worth braving the cold to polish up the track after over four months of inactivity.  It needed quite a lot of work; how long will it take to rub the code 100 rails down to code 75, I wonder!

The new girl took to the rails with relish - and has a fantastic voice in the form of Hornby's TTS sound.  Quite a looker too if you ask me.  Here are some photos:

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  • 4 weeks later...

Some half-decent snow here in the Dorking Highlands today, so it was out for a quick photo-shoot before the bright sunlight started to clear away most of the overnight fall.

First off was a train of empty mineral wagons pulled by the BR Standard 2-6-4 tank:

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Then we had the Black 5 on a train heading for Kyle of Lochalsh in some suitably wintry weather.  Hope the steam heating was working in the coaches.

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