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Jim's Garden Railway


jimbob
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No more hopeful, it's up, (well almost) it's running (just) and I can sit in the garden and watch the trains go by !!.

OK there are still a lot of things to do, the track bed is not as flat as it could be, I celebrate every time I can get a train round with out something falling off/stopping etc but I don't care It's built and I can play, sorry operate trains.

One end of the circuit is held up by flower pots as it will need to be removed when the lumberjacks turn up to remove my conifers (How much!) but like a big kid I couldn't wait so its all systems go, well sort of anyway.

Photos will follow at some time but to busy playing to do anything yet.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back to work so little progress. Tree men "coming soon" so they say but am starting to find all those happy little problems that garden railway operation throws up.

Although the track bed looked level when it went up it certainly is not now. Anyway so far it's not causing toooo many problems although it might when I have enough stock for fall length trains, still an excuse for double heading!

Big problem is tree debris because of high winds, again all part of the fun though.

Another problem is no computer at present so weekly updates via the library one, so no pics as yet.

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Wise words and one that I heeded as well, unfortunately my head ruled my heart and speed rather than accuracy took over. Still gradients look good and with a bit of weight on the loco's I'm sure I'll cope !

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When I was doing my railroad my sister was remodeling her home at the same time. She borrowed my level "for a day"; I didn't get it back for a couple weeks. I couldn't resist building I was just in a frenzy to get it going. My eyeballed baseboards aren't quite level. But it adds a little bit to have my trains speeding up and slowing down over parts as they deal with the tiny grade. So, YES, I know exactly how you fell. DO proceed with construction. :)

Oh... did someone mention pics? :lol::lol::lol:

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I have been using my trusty 3ft level. Checking at both ends of an 8ft board and in the middle. Also checked across the board in three or four places along the board. Perhaps a better levelling device would be a long water tube.

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You can get a simple laser device very cheaply these days. The prices have tumbled recently. Aldi and Lidl sometimes have special offers as well. I did try the water in tube method. It took a lot of time setting up and then, wasn't very accurate.

However you do it, the best of luck.

Dave W.

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Spent some time leveling up the worst of the gradients at the weekend, there still there , just a bit better than they were. Well finally abandoned all hope of the tree men coming and told them to take a walk as they have missed to promised dates. New quotes being sort, for what they wanted I thought they would be falling over themselves to do it but no, ho hum!

Still the delay means more operating time. Everything holding up really well, derailments now limited to (very) old stock not liking Peco points. No expansion problems although some straights have gone a bit wavy so will have sort them out. Power supply OK although track needs more cleaning in some place than others.

Splashed out on green 4 CEP from Hattons at knock down price and was very impressed. Main problem at the moment is that all my old stuff is in dire need of a service, something that I don't feel up to doing myself. Any recommendations anyone?

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Now this IS the weather for a garden railway! Saturday and Sunday running, and getting fewer problems now the bugs have been ironed out.

Main problem now is lack of working rolling stock, the older stuff is now in urgent need of servicing and the purchase of new motive power is on hold until I get some new quotes for tree removal.

Ace skip find from where I work of a large piece of ply and various smaller bits. Should be enough there for planned terminus and the the bottom of the garden extension, which is stage 1 complete and stage 2 started.

On the subject of wood saw something on telly at the weekend about wood recycling centers, done a search for my area and found a couple but all to far away. Basically there community groups that collect waste timber and either sell it on, build something with it or chip it. The center shown had a large amount large ply sheets that had been painted for hoardings on a building site and deemed not usable and some that had been damaged on the edges. Given that most of the ply we use is cut to shape etc. this seemed a cheap alternative to buying expensive new stuff. My be worth a web search for your area.

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  • 7 months later...

Still here, railway not blown away or flooded out and an inspection over the lat two Sundays has shown it stood up to the weather very well considering. So with the lighter afternoons I've stated this years extension around the bottom of the garden giving me a circuit of over 200ft. Once that's done (and I can play trains) the plan is for a terminus of a spur from the main line.

Story in paper today that we can expect a long hot summer this year. Here's hoping!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think I've overlooked this thread. Are there any photo's showing what's been happening?

Agree about the older stock being somewhat problematic. The newer stuff is usually far more reliable but some of them have those close coupled mechanisms which can affect running if you have a decent rake in tow. What's your interests? What kind of stock are you looking for?

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  • 1 year later...

Hi all, I am still here and I have been keeping an eye on you all but have not been able to contrbute ,normal problems ,health,wealth and work getting in the way of the important things in life.

So whats happened in over a year since I was last here? Well the line now runs all the way up one side of the garden along the bottom under the trees (yes there still there, just 10ft shorter!) and back again. The big thing now is the addition of a 10 x 8 to run eveything from. Well that was the plan, just somewhere to store stuff and have a fiddle yard, trouble a six platform terminus station seems to have spung up on one side of it now. As you will see over time I am not one for planning in advance and things just sort of happen.

Back to current developments, spent the last week cleaning the track and insalling a bus wire and making a start at connecting it all up. Considering that some of the track has been down for 3 years with only fishplates for electrical connections I think I have done very well. Full days running today a everything actually worked much to my supprise.

Hopefully I have been able to upload some picture as well as this post but this is all being done from my new Samartie fone so pleas excuse the odd tipwrten errers, fat finger small keyboard.[album][/album]

P S pics my not have downloaded as I have to many pixies in them, will try again next time.

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