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Provencal Garden Railway


pppp
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Hello, I have been reading these forums for the past year and have finally started work on a small oo garden railway.

I enjoy gardening and woodwork so my plan is to make an outdoor railway with the main goal of having it look great with to scale plants where possible. A model village with out the village. I am not a train collector, but we I got my old trains out my parents attic and despite 15 years of being boxed up, most ran very well. I used to have a board up on the dinning table as a child for a few weeks a year but it was always disappointing not to have a permanent layout.

So far I have cleared the ground where the railway is to go, and I have started to create my base board. I am building a base board much like an indoor railway apart from mine is 18 to 20cm's wide, and does a 14 meter long loop. The base board is currently under construction and will only go out into the garden in February or march when it has been painted to be weather proofed.

http://imgur.com/a/g6tvh" ; - photos from November 2013.

This forum is very useful as all my questions have already been answered by looking around here.

edit

Few notes - inner curve radius are 90cm, a r609 is 50cm so I think the corners should not be too tight?

A loop is around 14 meters long, 45 foot.

Should be two lines, hope the budget covers that

I might not include points. Maybe just a siding, really want to keep the layout basic.

Trains will be stock, no dcc etc.

The track should be perfectly flat

Two bridges over a yet to be built pond

One home made model station will be built.

Track will be new peco flexi track.

The track is in france, which makes it a little harder to acquire track and things.

I might give the track a cover, for rain / sun protection.

june 2015 -

 

august 2015 -

 

april 2016 -

 
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welcome to the forum. Always great to see a new member, and also nice to see a person openly come out as a Non collector. I started out here saying the exact same thing... but somehow the hobby has managed to suck me in 100%.

You should set up a new thread over here http://oogardenrailway.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=50" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; This is where all those layouts that are being built get followed. This thread is in the section for those layouts that have reached a state of completion. Granted, they do have a lot of progress updates etc, but have made that transition from planning to first proper train run.

cant wait to see what you do with the garden

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Hi PPPP, welcome to the forum, like what you have planned for your garden railway , and it is flat too, I am building a module outdoor layout and is flat on the ground in most places , till floor starts rising up towards the car port, some of the layout will be in under cover and rest outside, taking a bit longer to build, summer is here and too and too hot to work outside.

Looking forward to more progress of your layout construction.

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  • 4 months later...

March 2014 update.

http://imgur.com/a/RMTEj" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - photos

Just about to buy the track and have it posted out to france. The base board is all connected together, painted and flat. Currently busy planting up and preparing more plants in pots to go in once the track is down. Learning how to bonsai tree's as I would like to have a little wood for the train to pass past. planted a bunch of little tree's and will try and prune them each winter down to size. The viewing walkway is complete, new steps done, electricity outside ready, time to buy the tracks, can't believe I am actually going to have a train line in the garden!

Once the track is down and I get a train to go around which I expect is going to take me a while I will then work on modeling the bridges (Clifton Suspension Bridge style) , tunnels and station scenes. The pond is tempting, might be more of a little river than a fish pond. Its been fun with my 4 year old all ready, next update should include a video of a train moving.

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traingeekboy said:

If you are in provence, I bet you could source the track locally. Peco is somewhat the international brand of choice and there are plenty of model railroaders in france.

I have not yet found what I need onlne in france plus I live out in the countryside, is ehattons.co.uk a good place to shop? The webpage looks very good and they have what I need. I don't think peco's 91.5cm tracks will fit in my suitcase from england but I'l be bringing smaller bits over when I or family travel.

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I've always been very happy with Hattons despite some people calling them "Boxshifters". On the very odd occasion that something has gone wrong, they've done everything possible to put it right. I've been dealing with them for decades! At 23.24 on Saturday 28th February, I placed an order for 4 DCC decoders and they arrived at 09.05 on Monday 2nd March. It might take a bit longer to get track to France though!

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Always been happy with Hattons and they've dealt admirably with any problems (Railroad Deltic not functioning correctly).

The track is a problem for shipping over here (Canary Isles). Difficult to fit in friends suitcases etc.

I had some shipped directly and the VAT was annulled, however the tax is then placed on at Las Palmas (Gran Canaria, next Island) and it proved to be an arm and a leg more due to different rates. Delivery man got the usual "HOW MUCH?" :o

Good luck with the build.

Rossi

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I typed in ebay.fr then did a search for Maquettes trains électriques peco. Lots of ebay sellers in france.

http://www.ebay.fr/sch/i.html?_odkw=&_from=R40%7CR40&_osacat=479&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR10.TRC0.A0.H0.Xpeco.TRS0&_nkw=peco&ghostText=&_sacat=479

Where in provence are you? I bet you could find a local store in a nearby city. There is nothing like actually seeing the goods first hand before you buy.

I also did a search for: boutique trains électriques and got a lot of online stores in france.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Oh DHL, 15 days late with my shipment of new track. Maybe Tomorrow. Two thumbs down for DHL in France

The second hand track I ordered from Ebay arrived, but its coated steel not nickel silver. So that can go back on ebay. My bad there.

In better news the base is complete, the plants are growing, little tree's are budding and I put a very small pond in.

Really hope this is the last post I make before the trains are running.

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Hi PPPP, very nice rock garden with those plants, what do you call them in France, the nursery part of the big whare house called Bunning only have a few to choose from, we call them succulent plants and I plan to be covering a retaining wall out of wood sleepers with retaining wall bricks that lock in place, big enough to grow small plants be a good show in front of the first station module.

Slow going building the base for the track, I'm not going that far as my layout is a module set up even the large curved track is in two pieces, I am aiming to run the very first test loco on the last weekend of April, being at this layout since April last year, with some big changes that had to come, keep an eye out on my post for the very first video clip of the big event, only half of the layout will be done.

Planning to extend the layout further out into the garden around the garden shed, I love single track running with passing loops, trains will be pretty long, longer the better, my layout is DC, DCC coming later, got only one DCC loco, can run on bot.

Be looking forward to seeing more pics of your layout.

Happy modelling from down under, Tony

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  • 2 weeks later...

Big thank you to everyone who post's here for showing me it is possible to put a oo railway in the garden. This railway would never have happened with out this forum existing or without the people who post here. Also Ehattons for the track.

1 minute video of train just about getting round the track.

One loop of 17 pieces of flexi track has gone down and runs. The second line could go down in a month or so.

The only train running is a HORNBY R578, which my family acquired in the late 90's I think. The train only really picked up power well in the corners so I'l have to work on my cleaning techniques for pick up wheels and tracks. My intercity 225 also from the late 90's has dry bearings and is not fit to run, the other trains in my collection are a bit old - my father had them second hand in the late 70's early 80's. I hope to buy a new train next week, but the budget might only be for a smokey joe and maybe something second hand when I visit england.

Work continues, need to make a way to hide the power unit, model the bridges, plant more bonsai esq trees, fill pond, paths for children, station and of course a windmill!

I would like to produce a plant list one day, but sedums and succulents are quite hard to identify - easy to grow though. My favourite plant so far is the one in my profile picture 'sedum acre aureum' and the star shaped ones are 'sempervivum'. I am working on making my own bonsai tree's for the railway but its going to take a season or two before I get the results of that experiment.

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Excellent! Its really great to see some / a train running and, best of all, your son loves it! This is what is going to encourage his future interest. Lovely.

With regard to plants, I know what you mean about Sedums and Sempervivums - great little plants which are easy to grow and over the years, will spread nicely. I used these a fair bit on the HFR and also aubretia. This spread like wildfire, but currently, has given the garden a beautiful burst of purple everywhere. And where I have now lifted the track, its spreading even more.

I restricted the growth of the roots of the trees I planted and this worked fairly well, bearing in mind they were giant sequoia's that I planted! They came in plastic tubes, about 2" diameter and I just planted the whole thing, with only the bottom stopper taken off, thus restricting the root growth.

Keep enjoying your railway!

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Thank you for the reply, my son and I have watched many Hampton Field Railway videos, he counts trucks and coaches and I look at the details.

I will buy an aubretia variety as I don't think that's currently in my garden. I did cut back the roots on the tree's I collected this winter but I am going to have to learn how to keep them small and alive. Eventually like all plants track side to be to scale, most of its all in pots ready to be planted so I guess I can start that now some track is down.

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Hi PPPP, great feeling to see the first train run around the whole layout for the first time and you son interested in the hobby as well and agree what ba14eagle said and what you are saying about getting info getting from other members, was the same with me when I first joined the forum for.

Hopefully this weekend or early next week will see the first test loco to run on my layout and the first train, be only half of the layout.

Keep the good work up, pics and video coming

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I am in England, went to the Epsom model train show. It was packed, planning to go to another one soon.

Brought some points as I will attempt to create mechanical points moved by levers when I get home. Basically a strong wire connected to the points and a lever at the controller table.

On the look out for a skaledale windmill for less than £25 inc postage.

Also looking for DC hornby controllers much like R8250 .

EDIT - windmill has been purchased!

Edited by Guest
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Hi PPPP, you can get some good bargains at train shows, sadly I wont be able to help out at my train club hold their train show on our mothers day weekend, biggest train show in QLD.

I am interested in how you are going to tackle on making your mechanical point levers, points are a very expensive item for a layout, I have heaps on both ends of my station platforms, need a second single and double slip cross overs, points further away will have point motors on them , the train shop where I live in Ipswich QLD gives me 10% off, dose help with double slip cross overs costing $77, what do you pay for your points and track, a box of 25 flexi Peco track cost $120 here

Have you thought to look on Aussie eBay, I have bought some locos from the UK, one being the Flying Scot with the double tenders cheated, put a 5pole motor in the water tender and replaced the 3pole tender drive with a 5 pole, can now pull 11 coaches , pull 16 with ease, which I will do so on my layout, need to get some maroon sleeper cars.

Happy modelling from down under, Tony

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