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Garden railway mark III

Last modified: Fri Aug 3 08:52:12 2007

Building a railway on a sloping site does have its problems; but the necessity to run track on different levels has the advantage of allowing trains to cross each other on bridges

Before the construction of our first G-scale railway was properly complete, we moved house. I therefore had to undertake the heartbreaking task of tearing up the railway and packing what could be salvaged. Happily, the pain was slightly lessened by the prospect that we would soon have a somewhat bigger garden to work in. Most of what I said in my first G-scale railway pages, about my approach to building a garden railway, remains true, I think. I've learned a lot from our early G-scale efforts, but I will be using the same basic construction techniques, and working to the same design considerations; briefly these considerations are as follows.

• It has to look nice, but it doesn't necessarily have to look realistic
• It has to be child-proof or, at least, easy to repair
• It has to be more-or-less maintenance free. This means that the buildings, rolling stock, etc., will be exposed to the elements 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• This is not our retirement home. Most likely we will be moving again in a couple of years. This has a number of consequences. First, we have to have something basically functional in a few weeks, Second, things that take longer than a few weeks to construct have to be capable of being packed up and taken with us when we move house. Third, we can't do anything to the garden that will prevent us selling the house to anyone other than a garden railway enthusiast.

• Laying out the site
• Trackwork and bridges
• Digging the pond
• The waterfall
• Wiring
• UPDATE -- Spring 2006
• More to come as time allows...

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