SebBarrow

For anyone wondering, I have changed the topic title to reflect my intention to provide updates whenever progress is made to the railway / rolling stock / backstory. Christmas has brought the pleasant surprise of a Brandbright 4-wheel brake composite from their 'premier panelled' range, to be constructed over the next few weeks. I will post 'works photographs' at strategic stages. This vehicle is being constructed in the Fort Andrew carriage & wagon works, and will provide both first and second class seating, plus guards / luggage space. Plans are already afoot for a second vehicle, likely to be a 2 compartment second class coach, to accompany it. These coaches will form the initial basis of the N&BLR passenger fleet, which operates the thrice daily local passenger service linking Newtown and Fort Andrew with Barrowhaven Harbour, in between the quarry traffic which transports aggregates from the Newtown quarry to the seagoing vessels to the mainland. The carriage & wagon works will soon be constructing the next two open trucks. The second will be identical to the first 'Flora' vehicle, while the third vehicle will be a smaller narrower open wagon for coal traffic, imported at Barrowhaven and delivered across the island for domestic / industrial supply. Merry Christmas to everyone on RMWeb.

A rotary tippler would be hilarious, the problem is we have no birds owing to several local cats! (Despite best efforts to entice them.) I do however have plans to represent a loading / unloading operation, so some kind of mechanical equipment would not be out of place. The imaginary prototype for the railway is the Isle of Amber off the west coast of Cornwall, with a run-down railway carrying the local aggregate to the docks for shipping to the mainland, the N&BLR - Newtown & Barrowhaven Light Railway. Recently however the Westminster government has decided to pump cash into regenerating the local economy and developing the tourism market, and so a society has been set up called The Isle of Amber Railway Company (IAR) who intend to reopen and extend the existing line back into the hilly interior to reconnect the settlement of High Amberhead with the coastal town of Fort Andrew and the Barrowhaven Harbour via scenic Amberdale. The ultimate aim is to run tourist passenger trains to connect with the twice daily ferry services to Penzance, as well as reintroduce local passenger and freight services across the island.

Light aggregates such as sand, gravel or birdseed! (You could always pop round and see it, you know where I live Mr Coronach!)

Thought this might be of interest. In the May 2008 edition of 16mm Today there was an article showing how to use an empty 250g tub of margarine as the basis for a budget scratch built open wagon. I have used this as the basis for my first scratch building attempt, adapted to use the larger 500g tub. I'm rather pleased with the result so far, with buffer-couplings still to be added, and painting /weathering to be completed. The frames and buffer beams are various grades of stripwood, the chassis a piece of 4mm modellers ply. Axle boxes and wheel sets are Hudson-type gear from IP Engineering. I will be using the IP centre buffer / as standard for all my stock on the N&BLR.

Some interesting stuff to mull over, thanks to everyone for posting. While on the scratch-building vein, there are three extremely interesting articles in the August '16mm Today' about scratch building battery operated locomotives, each employing a very different technique. To anyone starting out in the narrow gauge garden railway genre, membership of the Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers Society is a must - very reasonable annual membership and some cracking articles in the quarterly magazine. Joining was my first step and I'm yet to regret it.

The OP is happy to give an update on the progress made. Decided to settle on a 'flexible' scale of between 1:19 and 1:24, with choices of rolling stock being based on mainly the width of items available and whether it all looks correct together. (If anyone asks, the gauge of the fictional prototype is 2ft 3in, with no measuring tools permitted near the garden!) However visible progress has been mainly in the construction department. I decided the railway needed to be a useful 18 inches off the ground adjacent to the potting shed that will ultimately house the loco shed and sidings at one end of the line, and the terminal station at the other. The line will meander around the edge of the garden, at a gradient of about 1:45 to maintain a reasonable operating height. To date, about 20ft of timber 'table' and half a rockery have been constructed, with output depending on the weekend weather forecast and completion of some professional coursework and exams recently. However my thoughts are turning to track (which I intend to build myself) and rolling stock again. Of the latter, AnDel Models seem to be producing some very reasonably priced, simple (and narrow!) rolling stock which is worth a look. As my ultimate maximum width of stock is likely to be in the 125mm region, I suspect I will be making several visits to their website over the next couple of years. I also have some very solid ideas about signalling with block bells, but perhaps more in the future about that! Don't wish to get ahead of myself. I am very surprised about what is being achieved with little outlay; the amount of free material available for use in construction is much greater if you ask around...

I will look at trying to attend Exeter, thanks for the heads up.

Thanks everyone for the very helpful advice and ideas. Been very busy getting our house sorted after moving in, so apologies I haven't replied until now. I potentially have a supply of handmade O-gauge track available, one of the reasons why the gauge choice was simple. Over the last few weeks I have been doing a fair bit of reading & research about 16mm scale railways, and I've actually got someone sending me pictures of items of rolling stock they're looking to sell. However my concern is that this scale may slightly too large. I've also been in correspondence with someone who models in 1:24 scale using 32mm track, mainly with heavily converted Faller e-train and Playtrain rolling stock, plus some 'rubber scale' items such as Big Big Train shunters, etc. (Out of interest, does anyone know what scale the Big Big Train 0-4-0 shunter actually is? Obviously larger than 7mm/foot, but not as big as 16mm I think. Somewhere around 1:24-1:30 perhaps?) Does anyone have any experience of converting LGB rolling stock (locos and/or coaches/wagons) to run on 32mm gauge track? I like much of the European metre-gauge stock and it appears to be the appropriate size to be aiming for, but I'm wanting to build a railway that represents 2ft 6in gauge. (Think Zillertalbahn coaches running on the Welshpool & Llanfair Railway.) I'm also needing to find out how easy it is to convert 2-rail electric powered locos to manual battery operation, can anyone provide any advice? As always, comments and advice very appreciated. Many thanks! Seb

Hi Bill, thanks for the reply. I'm definitely leaning towards narrow gauge, simply because I think it looks better winding through the garden. I think the choice of gauge / scale is the major question I'm considering at the moment, the main problem is that I can't quite visualize the actual size of the models. Roughly how large is a 7mm scale narrow gauge locomotive? Can such trains be converted to battery operation or should I be focusing on 16mm scale? Thanks for the links, I'll trawl through them when I get a chance. Seb

Hello all, My wife and I are currently moving into our first home. I've decided there isn't a natural space in the (terraced) house for a 4mm model railway, but the longish garden is perfect for an outdoor operation. Considering that we are already thinking about reworking parts of the garden for flower borders etc, now seems to be the ideal time to think about the railway concept as well. I have a vague understanding of the different gauge and scale options available. Dimensions and layout of the garden would permit use of either 16mm or 32mm gauge track, although obviously the smaller option appeals simply because it would allow more to be fitted in. I visited the Somesay Island railway last summer (google it if you don't know about this awesome garden operation) and the idea of battery operated trains being sent between operators at different stations really appeals. However I don't know if this limits the gauge option? Is 16mm gauge an electric-only option, if so I might want to focus on 32mm gauge. My concept is a fictional, British island based narrow gauge system, linking a port with a town via a hilly coastal landscape. A branch line to a quarry is a future option. My emphasis will be on operational enjoyment rather than prototype correctness. Does anyone have any pointers to start me in the right direction? I understand the benefit of including a covered area (shed available) and elevating the track above ground level. Beyond that, I'm on my own! Thanks in advance Seb