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the Dorking Garden Railway


Andrew
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Thomas and the snow

Annie and Clarabel were delighted to see the snow, but Thomas wasn't so sure.  "I don't think we'll be able to get out of the carriage sidings" he said.

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Even when they turned round to face the other way, the enormous depth of snow defeated them:

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"If we try to move from here, we'll just get stuck!" said Thomas.

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Annie and Clarabel were very sad.  "Isn't there anything you can do, Thomas?" they said.

So Thomas jumped everyone across to another track, but still the snow was too deep to risk.

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"It's no good" said Thomas.  "There's too much snow today.  We'll just have to stay at home."  So he blew hot steam into Annie and Clarabel's pipes to keep them warm and cheer them up.

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The Fat Controller told Thomas that the whole line was completely snowed-in, and even the girder bridge was impassable.  But as he said, things like that don't happen very often in Dorking, so we hope the trains will be running again soon.

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  • 1 month later...

Spring Greens

After a month of cold and then wet, our weather hasn't been great until very recently.  So I needed to seize the moment in today's sunshine and decided it felt like a day for running Southern Region branch line trains, using the N Class and the BR Standard 2-6-4 tank.  Here are some of my many photos.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

An exciting day (part 1)

The day, which was to feature the first visiting locomotives this year, began with a sort of "Escape from Suez" commemorative intermodal train with the Class 66 and the slowly lengthening rake of container flats:

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And then the first of our exciting visitors appeared:

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Of which there will be more anon.

 

 

 

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Great little video Andrew that just goes to show you don't need DCC sound to create an enjoyable viewing experience. I really like it with a nice soothing soundtrack in the background - much better than some of the awful diesel sounds I've been fortunate enough to acquire!

I'd been thinking of doing something similar myself up in the attic and been searching for some complimentary music but it's not until you actually see what someone else has done that you appreciate just how pleasing it can be. The attic acoustics really distort and reverberate DCC sound to a point where it becomes overbearing even for me sitting up there but made even worse on video for everyone else.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Take three girls...

 

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First we'll follow Bessie the Black 5...

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and then Julie the Jubilee (with three types of ex-LMS coaches):

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and then Stella the BR Standard 4MT, here with Julian's ground signals and water column:

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I couldn't resist another take of 'el classico':

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Rounding off with another view of the girls together:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Southern Visitors

Several Southern visitors arrived today with David, but we couldn't persuade all of them to cooperate nor pose for the camera.  But here are some that did both of those things.

 

First it's King Arthur Class "Sir Meliagrance".  He was a rather disreputable knight who had a crush on King Arthur's queen Guinevere and kidnapped her, before meeting a very sticky end from the sword of Sir Launcelot.  But the loco runs well.

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Here showing the Drummond tender with which the Eastleigh Arthurs began their careers:

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Merchant Navy Class "Holland-Afrika Line":

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And this member of the home team seems to get in everywhere:

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Edited by Andrew
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  • 4 weeks later...

A New Zealand garden railway in 1933

My planned running session (and visitors) today had to be cancelled because of wet weather.  So I started to peruse some long-forgotten copies of the Armstrong Whitworth Record, which was a promotional magazine produced by the engineering group.

The following photos, with not much supporting text, show the Roberts Stewart Roberts Railway which was in Auckland.  This was built "not as a plaything but as a historical record of the New Zealand Railways, Locomotives and Rolling Stock from the earliest days".

"The completeness of the data collected in the work of building this line is astonishing, every locomotive, every vehicle, is a true to scale model of a prototype whose history is known in amazing detail as the result of the tireless searching out and writing to scores of descendants of old railway employees."

Unfortunately there's no mention of scale or gauge, but I'm hoping someone in NZ may be able to enlighten us, especially if the models have survived to today.

The models were apparently built by Messrs F & G Roberts, with the research done by Mr W W Stewart.

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All safe in New Zealand (the models, that is)

A very helpful reply from Alan at the New Zealand Model Railway Guild explains that the locomotives and rolling stock models have survived and were sold to the NZ Government Railways by Frank Roberts in the 1950s. The models are now in the possession of Te Papa Tongarewa/Museum of New Zealand and appear on exhibition from time to time.

He confirms that the models are G gauge (which in the 1930s would presumably have been called gauge 1).  Given NZ's 3'6" track, the scale is 1:24.

The Wikipedia page I've found on Frank Roberts   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Roberts_(model_maker)  has a link to the NZ museum where there are photographs of the models which show their superb detail.  https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/631

Frank lived from 1882 to 1963.  A book called Vintage steam: stories by Frank Roberts, edited by Gordon Troup was published in 1967.  Then a book by Frank Roberts' daughter was published in 1976, covering his life, his workmanship and love of steam power and the making of the garden railway with the aid of his brother, George and friend, Bill Stewart.

It's good that this pioneer of garden railways has a place in history.

 

 

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