The Basing & Lyde Railway - 16mm Live Steam Outdoor Shelf layout!

[BasingAde]

It's now two years since we moved house and a year since I started working on the Basing & Lyde Railway. Time to stop lurking on RMWeb and start taking part!

 

This is my second outdoor layout, the first being ground level and "P" shaped, built at a previous house over 20 years ago. This one was going to be different....

 

We're lucky to have a walled garden, so the B&L is probably best described as a live steam outdoor end-to end shelf layout!

I wanted it to feel like a typical narrow gauge railway, so the action takes place at the stations - shunting, running-round etc. I like to run a railway.

From terminus to terminus, the total length is just under 50 feet and there is no continuous run. A halt and siding break the journey midway.

Inspiration comes from modern private railways like Bredgar & Wormshill and the Richmond Light Railway, although I also have a very soft spot for the Lynton & Barnstaple!

 

The infrastructure is made entirely from exterior plastics - mainly square PVCu downpipe for the "baseboard" framework and legs, with soffit board as the baseboard edge. All materials are rot-free (no wood), and UV stable as they're intended to be outdoors permanently. Track is all Peco.

The trains run at counter/waist height for comfortable operation and almost eye-level viewing if you're sat in a garden chair.

 

Resident steam locos are from Roundhouse: A manual "Millie" & radio controlled "Billy", plus a trusty old Mamod.

There is also an Accucraft "Lyn", but she feels too large for the layout and has only ever run with my L&B stock in other people's gardens and on our club layouts at GMES (Guildford Model Engineering Society).

 

That will probably do for now, except to share "Billy" after arrival at the outer terminus "Hatch" - (still awaiting an island platform and canopy)....

Billy will soon uncouple and pull forward into the headshunt, before running around the Shull & Skibbereen style stock and departing bunker first to the main station at "Milkingpen Lane" - maybe with a request stop at "Hodds Hill" on the way.......

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by BasingAde
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