Back to 16mm

[cypherman]

Hi all,

This is the second time I have tried to post these photo's. So I hope it works this time. Some time ago I posted some photo's of my friends 16mm narrow gauge garden layout I was lucky enough to have a small part in building and now help run. As promised I said I would post some more photo's once this years rebuild had finished. Well here they are. Sorry that there are so many but the layout was virtually completely rebuilt and remodelled.

There are several cameo's on the railway such as Fred Dibner steeple-jacking, The Railway children and Andy Cap and Flo waiting for a train and see if you can find Winston Churchill. My favourite cameo is the one of the reverend watching his chicken flock whilst being watched by the fox.

All the stone/brick walls and pillars are cast concrete using home made frames and allowed to set, But once they have become hard enough they have been carved by hand to make the relevant look. Then left to fully harden. The viaduct and goods shed have been made in the same way. They along with the signal box have roofing felt roofs , Each felt slate is an individually cut piece which has been applied and glued down.

All signals are linked to their respective points, Whether as point or route indicators and all work. The majority of the signals have been scratch built. The viaduct and slate bridge have also been scratch built The slate bridge has over 1000 pieces of individually cut slate in it.

I apologise now if it ends up being posted twice.

Edited September 20, 2018 by cypherman

[ossygobbin]

brill

that railway has a lot of the features i would have liked to do if only may garden had been suitable.

[Martino]

That’s really excellent. Also very neat and tidy. How do you keep it like that. I’m always suffering from leaves, twigs, weeds, and all sorts of other garden detritus. Not to mention that my one year old Collie has decided to chew anything that isn’t metal!

 

It’s a very impressive railway you have there.

[cypherman]

Hi Martino,

The garden is surrounded by high fences which keeps the wind from blowing too much debris about, But my friend every morning when any running is to be done removes any debris and cleans all the track. Plus the ballast used is slate chippings. Far smaller than normal ballast. looks more to scale, does not blow about and is easily relaid when needed. So it is easy to clean. Also the layout is not at ground level. It is all raised to about 3ft off the ground. Therefore there is not so much ground based rubbish getting blown onto it and it is out of the way of small creatures, Except the mouse that decided to set up home under the castle. It obviously had delusions and grandeur and we had to dissuade him from staying there.....

Edited September 16, 2018 by cypherman

[Fillipe]

A lot of work and effort put into a great railway. How on earth has he produced so much scale sized slate ballast? That must have taken an age. If not, please share the technique!

Edited September 16, 2018 by Fillipe

[cypherman]

A lot of work and effort put into a great railway. How on earth has he produced so much scale sized slate ballast? That must have taken an age. If not, please share the technique!

Hi Pillipe,

The Ballast is crushed slate bought from one of our local builders merchants. I think it comes in 5kg bags(bags are about the size of a bag of sand), We must have used about 20 bags on the layout. The wonderful thing about it is that it is laid with no cement or glue to hold it down. So if you have to do any work or relaying track you can just brush it out of the way then brush it back when done. It seems to stay in place in all weather including windy weather. Does not seem to cause any problems with clogging the points and when it rains any that goes onto the top of the rails is just brushed off with a wooden block. And yes it appears very much more in scale than the ballast sold in shops.

Edited September 16, 2018 by cypherman

[cypherman]

Hi all,

My main model railway interest for myself is in 4mm. But I just love helping run this railway. It is not run as just a round and round(it can be if wanted), But we have time tables that are written and specific trains to run them. Over the past 5-6 years that it has taken this railway to get to where it is we must have written about 30 different timetables. In many respects writing the time tables are half the fun and getting them to run right. We also have 2 battery engines that are use as interference trains as they just run round the main line and we have to work some of the timetables around them. Makes them more interesting to run as we have to wait for them to pass to access certain parts of the track to proceed. The one rule we have with them is that them must not be interfered with and we have to work round them.

But another great passion of mine is putting models into real landscapes. They are not always perfect but I find them fun to do. Here are some that I have done on this railway over the years.

Edited September 16, 2018 by cypherman

[Dorkingian]

All very atmospheric - and slatey.  Impressive amount of work, but to superb effect.

[cypherman]

Hi all,

I thought this might be of interest to show how things change and progress. These are the original pictures I took when the railway was first built over 6 years ago. It has changed out of all recognition. It just goes to show that you may have started small but there is no end of what you can do with it over time. As the saying goes "Rome was not built in a day". But gardeners beware you may loose your plots......

Edited September 18, 2018 by cypherman

[44690]

What a wonderful railway. Well done. I love all the pictures. 

 

Ian