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Jim's Garden Railway


jimbob
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So just like Network Rail the garden railway is closed for the bank holiday for najor works.

The loop at the far end of the line has been rebuilt after the tree fellers knocked it over, now l removed the track and placed it so it would go back as before, the new base boards, are the sane shape and size as the ones they replace, does it all fitt back together, does it hell!!.

So several hours and a temper tantrum later its finished. Just need to to compleat the loop back into the shed where the ants ate the plywood base (they seem to love the glue) and l should be back in business.

In the last couple if weeks l've been round the layout closeing up gaps that have appeared at track joints, just putting stuff away and noticed that a section that l closed up has reopened again in three places. May have to resort to soldering them up if this keeps happening. Any suggestions?

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Wow Cockatoos making a foothold in the US must of escapped from his cage an managed to find a mate , they sure an do some damage, seen pics of them destoriing  barn roof notsure where culd be the US going by the shape of the barn roof.

Ants can be real pain especially the lttle back ones, we had to replace a landline phone must of liked the circuit board .

Tony from down underkeeping on movinf ahead.

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  • 6 months later...

A happy New Year to you all, shows how long its been since l've been here! 

So not a lot happening in the garden, has been far to cold this winter and every time l go to do something it snow lately. But a sunny day today has tempted me out to assess  the winter damage. The windy weather has finally done for the fence behind the shed and l have decided to abandon that bit of the line, it's geting a bit tight for a rotund gent like my self to fit down there so l've salvaged the track and boards and the plan is to have a loop in front of the shed instead.

Inside the shed it's a mess. So first off l need a clearout to make some space. The station baseboard has developed  a bit of a bend in it and needs to be screwed down as it appears l forgot to do that when l rebuilt the frame work it sits on !!

The long run down the side of the garden will be mothballed  this year probabilly, to concentrate on the shed circuit which l hope will mean that provided l am prepared to brave the winter cold l can operate  a short layout without problems throught the year.

The experiment with radio controlled battery power still sits expensively  in its box taunting me to wreck a loco with my soldering and electical skills......

So all in all a busy summer lies ahead l hope.

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HI Jimbob, happy new year 2018 as well Jim, good to see back, you sure did have a bad winter, I don't know what is worse our hot summers to your winter,s, our winter's are no whereas bad as yours ,  but we could be having a colder winter the way the weather people are saying, that be great  southern QLD close to the NSW border in the mountains gets cold, Warwick one of the towns . Warwick does get snow, hoping to go for a visit when the conditions are right, stay over night or the weekend, never seen snow, want to touch it.

Don't forget to send pics of your layout, yeah I have cut back as well on mine, station complex not as large now, decided to work on what I have, concentrating on the main line.

I would love just to power one loco with batter power, those pancake motors , like the Lima and Hornby , the loco  is a Bachmann old  DD40 loco  with  one of those power bogies, is what I want to change to become a track cleaner , the middle wagon being the crack cleaner .

Tony from wet down under keeping on moving a head

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  • 1 year later...

Well l am still here, and yes so is the garden railway, just that life gets in the way sometimes.

Anyway, a brief catch up is in order. Last year was a bit of disaster to start off with. Several sections of baseboard had sagged over tbe winter due to quality of material and poor construction, all down to my budget and poor DIY skills !

Some extreme measures needed to be taken and a planning rethink undertaken. Well l say planning, not my strong point,  more a whack something up and make things fit!

The result was by the end of autumn 75% of an entirely new railway was built in front of the existing shed. Proper thick ply was used and support posts concereted in and some track laid before the weather turned. So the early spring weather saw me back out and the last bit completed, sort of, today. Still lots of tidying up work to do but l do have a runable railway again.

It is a very humble effort , more an out door train set or railway in the garden than a garden railway. But that's what l wanted, somewhere to sit and watch the trains go round and round and relax. The old section when back up and running will allow me to play "Proper trains" or just watch have some fun on the new bit

The link from the shed to the new section needs to be completed along with a final two sections of the old line which gave up this winter. 

Still lots more to do including the wireing which l hate, but it's a sort of running railway.

And yes there are pictures, but please 'scuse the mess coz l am an untidy bigger!

 

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Hi Jimbob, good to see you back again and have a new outdoor railway up and running, we all have those set back, I had a bad 2017, didn't get back into the layout till after Christmas 2018, set back again this year  didn't start off to well and April, full swing back into my layout, aiming for September 2019.

That is your shed with the windows can see the track off to the right at the corner of the shed, can't wait to see what you have built inside the shed.

I am working on a bridge at them moment, will finish it this weekend, my new train club put in a show layout into Brisbane's train show last weekend, I helped the, set up on Friday and went Sunday to help man the layout bought a new loco, Indian Pacific loco NR class., have three of them now.

Tony from cool down under, winter just around the corner.

 

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Great to see you back on the forum Jim and pleased to hear that the railway is still progressing. 

I think it's the first time we've seen an overall view of the layout as in the above photos and you've certainly got yourself a grandstand view of the action from the adjacent shed. You say it's a 'humble' effort but there's a heck of a lot of work gone into it and it all looks stable enough to me.

Wiring isn't my favourite project either but it's an important task in order to achieve reliable running so don't skimp on it - just do a little at a time and it will soon all be done and you'll be glad you did it.

Keep us updated on progress.

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Although not powered up yet l couldn't resist a test run in between the showers so l fired up my battery power 08 , an old Tri-ang/Hornby one with a 9volt battery strapped to it! Found a couple of places where it kept coming off ( bird poo on track!) Then tried it round on the other track only to find that the point where the track flyover is is about 3 mm to low on that side and hits the loco. Lots of muttering and lying down trying to unscrew and adjust brackets, and yes it did start rain just as l reached the point of no return and yes l did get wet. How l laughed (not). Anyway l will test it out again weather permitting over the weekend. 

Yes there is a trianglar junction in the corner this when completed, again maybe this week, runs into the shed to a through station, then loops round outside the shed and back in side to a terminus station. This is the old part of the layout which is in need of a bit/lot of tic at present. 

That's a lot of track to clean l hear people say and yes it is but l am experimenting/researching  with battery powered/RC controlled locos at the moment.  Not cheap but solves a lot of problems. Trouble is at present some systems will only operate DC locos and some only DCC. So it looks like a lot of wireing and cleaning for now.

 

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On 10/05/2019 at 22:29, jimbob said:

...That's a lot of track to clean l hear people say and yes it is.....

It's time consuming, especially when you've a lot of track to clean but at least being raised off the ground it shouldn't get quite as dirty as track laid at ground level. You're lucky in a way that the layout is confined to one area and you can clean parallel tracks at the same time - without having to kneel down too which is a big bonus.

I've found that rails tarnish to a greater degree when they're at ground level so there's obviously something down there that reacts with the nickel silver rails. Sadly there's not a lot you can do about the bird droppings short of deterring birds from the area. Someone told me that putting out a bowl of fine grit can be useful. Doesn't stop the birds messing but it does look more like ballast!

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4 hours ago, mick said:

It's time consuming, especially when you've a lot of track to clean but at least being raised off the ground it shouldn't get quite as dirty as track laid at ground level. You're lucky in a way that the layout is confined to one area and you can clean parallel tracks at the same time - without having to kneel down too which is a big bonus.

I've found that rails tarnish to a greater degree when they're at ground level so there's obviously something down there that reacts with the nickel silver rails. Sadly there's not a lot you can do about the bird droppings short of deterring birds from the area. Someone told me that putting out a bowl of fine grit can be useful. Doesn't stop the birds messing but it does look more like ballast!

Nickel silver rails definitely react to any dispersion glue. 

At one point I glued the tracks with dispersion glue (water-resistant) and then a tarp over it against the rain for drying time. 
The rails behind were as green as the copper roofs of the cathedrals.
Without tarpaulin, the effect was only where the glue had fallen directly onto the rails.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I HATE ELECTRICS!!! Despite an ominous weather forecast it's  a loverly morning so pressed on with fitting droppers to the bus wire. Trying to do a proper job with no wires snaking across the baseboard etc. One problem being that l cannot solder to save my life, people gave tried to show me how its done l just end up with melted sleepers and burnt fingers. Anyway pressed on with it and have to say was quite pleased at the results. That till l realised that l have wired them up the wrong way round, positive wire where negative should be etc. 

Time for a beer and Sunday lunch l think!

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I have used pre wired fishplates in the past, shop bought are expensive, and even made them myself, burnt fingers and ever rising blood pressure allowing.

Anyway the wireing "error" is being left at present. I shall continue to wire up as is, at worst it will mean switching a couple of feeds round on the old part of the layout or l have a couple of reverse loop thingies in the shed somewhere.

That aside l have a couple of H & M DC controllers that have stopped working, l thought l saw an advert in one of the rail mags for someone who repairs them but of course cannot find it now. Any ideas? I suspect it will work out cheaper to by a new one but l do like a bit of Nostalgia. 

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  • 3 months later...

I think the issues relating to DCC or DC are pretty much the same indoors and out. 

The Dorking Garden Railway is wired to handle either, depending on which lead is plugged in to the master track connection.  With my mixed fleet, it just depends what has to be run - or the needs of whoever is visiting.  And of course DCC chipped engines will normally operate on DC anyway if required.

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17 minutes ago, Andrew said:

I think the issues relating to DCC or DC are pretty much the same indoors and out. 

The Dorking Garden Railway is wired to handle either, depending on which lead is plugged in to the master track connection.  With my mixed fleet, it just depends what has to be run - or the needs of whoever is visiting.  And of course DCC chipped engines will normally operate on DC anyway if required.

As I use Frog Juicer at my switches which need DCC, DC running is limited to only one circuit which is isolated from the rest (but can also be changed to DCC  and than connected to the rest of my layout) and has its switches different fitted. 

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Some DCC controllers allow you to use a DC loco on them, not all though, and the "experts" say that doing this can cause damage to the loco. What l do know is that DC on DCC makes a loud humming noise! Don't put a DCC chipped loco on DC powered track, disaster!

I would advise against the use of infra red controlled walkabout units in the garden, sunshine plays havoc with them. 

 

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