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Hi Folks,

Thought it might be good to introduce myself and say hello.

I'm Paul. 29 years old, from County Durham. I am a lifelong model railway enthusiast, and have had OO gauge as long as I can remember. I have always wanted to build a Garden Railway, but parents would not relent, absolute no no. so had to stick with a Railway in the loft, and many iterations were built in a relatively small space.

Bought a house my my now wife 4 years ago, and with limited headroom in the loft, along with next to no garden space, a railway was built in our spare room, this was my most successful railway to date, and I loved it to bits, but foolishly I built it without ever considering the prospect of 1. us starting a family, and 2. moving house.

Inevitable house move took place a month ago, and the railway was dismantled in the months leading up to it. I managed to save one section complete, which was the station area which was where most of my efforts had been in the first place. based loosely on Goathland, though on a curve, this will probably go back onto my indoor railway when I start building a new one (I've got a basement this time, so happy days!)

What the new house does offer as well is a lovely rear garden where I can finally realise my dreams of a Garden Railway. It was always going to be OO gauge, i'm just too far gone with that scale to do anything else. I do have some Mamod SM32, but not enough to go all out Garden style (though It might get put up from time to time on the patio).

Plan at the moment is for a ground level (or just slightly above) section nearest the house, rising to around 18" above the ground at the far end of the garden (to counter the gradient), which will keep the railway almost level. In one corner, there are plans for a ornamental pond, and the railway will go over that on a gently curving viaduct (the pond is to be a concrete+ Resin coated structure, so the viaduct can in fact be raised from the pond bed).

I've been reading a number of the threads on both this forum and RMweb, so I am slowly gaining some ideas in terms of the track bed. Once a basic plan is in place, i'll start a thread up.

Now the boring stuff. I am a Mechanical Engineer for employ, starting out as an ICI premium apprentice (I believe the very last one in fact), before working at Johnson Matthey (apprentice technician), Furmanite (Machinist), Corus (Graduate engineer), Cummins (design Engineer), and most recently Nifco, on R&D work. I restore Tractors and Stationary engines, and occasionally like to sing as well, with a bit of a passion for Opera. I organise a rally or two at Locomotion each year for vintage machinery.

cheers.

Paul.

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Hi Paul,

welcome to the forum from the other side of the pond :D

I have the same problem as you for more than 40 years, with the lack of space, I'm now in the planning face of a OO gauge garden rail with British rolling stok.

I hope to have something running by next spring.

I hope you enjoy it here as much as I do.

Cheers,

Danny

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Hi Paul welcome to the forum, I'm sure you will get all the help and advice you will ever need for the chaps on here, :) you will also most likely get some sarcastic comments from a few of them (not me of course!) so I hope you are ok with that as well! :lol::lol: Rest assured though there's nothing malicious, :shock: we just enjoy a good laugh on here as well from time to time. :lol::lol::lol:

All the best with your project, don't be afraid to ask questions. Regards Nige.

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ba14eagle said:

Welcome to the forum Paul.

Do you have any scope to run from your basement to the garden? A helix could be very helpful ;)

Thank you :)

It probably is feasible, as the basement leads into a storeroom which can be made to access the garden, the difference in intended height is around 5', so it would take quite a spiral set to achieve it (not to mention some very dizzy passengers) but it could be done. I certainly won't rule it out that is for sure.

cheers. Paul.

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EngineDriver said:

Hi Paul welcome to the forum, I'm sure you will get all the help and advice you will ever need for the chaps on here, :) you will also most likely get some sarcastic comments from a few of them (not me of course!) so I hope you are ok with that as well! :lol::lol: Rest assured though there's nothing malicious, :shock: we just enjoy a good laugh on here as well from time to time. :lol::lol::lol:

All the best with your project, don't be afraid to ask questions. Regards Nige.

Hi Nige,

thank you for the welcome. hatches battened down ready for incoming sarcasm assault :D

I can be a stubborn soul for the most part, with wanting to go through with ideas I have created (usually out of thin air and against better judgement), so bear with me when these instances happen :lol:

cheers,

Paul.

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Hi again Paul, there's nothing wrong with pushing through with ideas that you have thought up it's what we all do anyway, around here it's called "a learning curve"! if it works great ...........tell everyone one here, if it doesn't ...............hide it! :lol::lol::lol::lol:

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Hi Paul, welcome to the forum.

Quote

Paul wrote

It probably is feasible, as the basement leads into a storeroom which can be made to access the garden, the difference in intended height is around 5', so it would take quite a spiral set to achieve it (not to mention some very dizzy passengers) but it could be done. I certainly won't rule it out that is for sure.

Yeah go for a spiral what I am building on my layout which has 12inch difference in height from the car port, the track on the back of the layout is lower by 6inches, my spiral works out to be 2 percent grade quarter inch a foot, spiral is 24 feet long and a 7foot radius curve. Have finished building the spiral working on the low level section, keep an eye on my post how I am going.

Tony from down under

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thanks Tony,

it might work, but its 5 foot i've got to drop rather than 5 inches, could have quite a few turns on that spiral (and some very dizzy passengers) :lol:

Unless I use a two level track hoist (like the sort of thing window cleaners use on sky scrapers). to raise and lower a train between the two. that might work.

Paul.

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Hi Paul,, now this idea is going to blow you away and will work, didn't realise it was 5ft so I reckon a Zig Zag will work and be a lot of fun as well if you are running small trains, in Australia we have such a line in the Blue Mountains NSW as a tourist railway now, there is another Zig Zag in South America and that is in operation as a main line.

Here is a good video clip from you tube for you to look at and a couple of pics

You don't have to have the amount of work the scenery would take, my layout isn't going to have a lot of scenery mainly the cable stay bridge and station complex will.

Hope that will give you some ideas on what you plan to build, be looking forward to seeing some progress pics.

Tony from very cold down under

ZigZagRailway  a.jpg

Zig_zag_railway_at_Lithgow  a.jpg

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certainly a lot more compact, plus looking at that video, it was 25 minutes to get the train up to the top.

fun railway for sure, but a layout in its own right.

if the two layouts get joined, it'll be a track hoist, probably 6ft long, and i'll split the trains in two to use it.

Paul.

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