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Hello!

 

Finally at the stage where I can start to share progress on building this line. Posts will be infrequent initially - you will see why below, but I hope you find it of some interest.

 

History

 

I have had a long fascination with North Wales narrow gauge, having a been a member of the Deviation works volunteers on the Ffestiniog, and later a member of the Corris. My first two garden layouts (one very temporary and a more permanent one) in Peterborough were primarily learning exercises. I did manage to finish the raised beds, track beds and track and a few buildings, but never ran much due to a busy working life. Now we have settled in France, with a decent sized garden, and nearly (!??) finished several years of building, landscaping and flood prevention works outside, I have found time to start the real reason we moved here.....

 

(I also intend to build an indoor 00 layout of my lifetime, in a barn nearly ideal for the purpose, but this is on hold pending yet further work to that, and the fact that a friend's furniture occupies most of it while he builds his new house. So outdoors it is for now.)

 

Construction Choice

 

In this part of Western France (Charente Maritime) we live under threat of earthquakes. Well, we had a mild one a few years ago, but none of the old timers remember anything dramatic in their lifetimes. Nonetheless, there are two practical problems with the ground:

 

a) it moves a lot. It dries rapidly in summer, deep down, and gets waterlogged in winter. Cracks in the mainly stone buildings all around here are not unusual at all, and repairs to them are tried and tested. But for new works, footings have to be substantial and reinforced. Even then, we have had some parts of concrete foundations drop by about an inch compared to ones alongside, in just a year.

 

b) it contains huge amounts of large stones and boulders, from the surface right down to the deepest we have dug (about 4 metres), and they are everywhere you dig.

 

So, I faced choosing between a layout with floating track and shallow, ballasted substructure, or an over-engineered concrete foundation, with heavy blocks where necessary. Whilst the former would have been much easier to undertake, experience here suggested I would subsequently spend an awful lot of time re-levelling the track, re-ballasting and so on, rather than running trains. So, despite concerns over concrete sinking over time, I felt this would happen only in a very few places, and would most likely happen significantly only once (as had happened with the main building works), if it happened at all, given that there would be very little weight on it.

 

Next was the choice of level. The garden originally was one big slope, and I spent our first year planning how to utilise this. We had also planned to have a swimming pool built (my wife has MS and swimming is about the only useful exercise she can undertake, which was another big reason for moving here.) However, once it became necessary to install major flood prevention retaining walls as well, that allowed a levelling off of almost the entire garden. That took me another year or two, after the pool was dug out. The beauty of the lay of the land now is that I get a waste high length of about 15 metres, ideal for the steaming up bay and the station, carriage sheds and yard, for tending to locos and coupling/uncoupling. The rest of the line will be at ground level for the most part, with a raised area at the far end, if it ever gets that far.....

 

The Track Plan

 

I am still perfecting this on AnyRail and will post in the next week. Simply put, it will be two 15m long, flat sided loops, at each side of the garden, joined by a single line going around a third side. A twisted dog bone shape if you like, but with the sides of each loop hidden from each other so that, hopefully, they do not look like loops.

 

Getting on with it

 

Phase 1 - should have been along the waist high stretch, so I could have the main functional parts of the line in action before building the rest, given that old adage " get something running, quickly" so you don't get disheartened. But Sodde has been working hard ever since we got here, and Phase 1 turned out to be a 15 metre stretch of ground level track bed, half of which foundations were needed to support a dwarf wall, as part of the area to house the heat exchanger for the pool. So that got built, as a reinforced concrete bed, wide enough to house the track and a raised flower bed behind, lined with natural stone dug up from earlier work.

 

Phase 2 - this is a triangular junction, to allow a continuous run for the first loop, until the second one is built, and to allow access to the line to the other loop, from either side of the first. The pics below are easier to understand.

 

Phase 3 - this will extend from one side of junction along the waist high wall, for the station area etc, then around the far end, and back to the junction on the other side, via a canal basin siding.

 

Phase 4 - lay the track and get on with the fun stuff. The next stages can wait until another year, if I get a Round Tuit.

 

 

 

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Reminds me of kitchen fitting in the past, Several times I was asked when quoting, to fill the kitchen with 'Smeg' 

 

Customers needed to be much clearer when specifying to avoid confusion as well as arrest.

 

I've had requests in the past for ABC, Mealy, Viceman, and many other appliances, sometimes specificying is a step too far for some people!

 

Mike.

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Hi mike

               I found that track plans need to be fluid in the building stage. I had to alter mine more than once before I finished ,and even now looking at adding another siding for storage purposes  .phil

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Hi mike

               I found that track plans need to be fluid in the building stage. I had to alter mine more than once before I finished ,and even now looking at adding another siding for storage purposes  .phil

 

Quite right Phil. That has already happened, twice, as I hit solid concrete and a massive tree root, where I did not expect them below ground! It is even more true outside than inside that a layout on paper does not look half as good (or practical) when emerging in the flesh. But I have to make a firm decision, now I have finished the triangle, about the layout for the station and sidings/loco/carriage shed. Once the big grey stuff is down, it's down.....

 

Am still playing with the AnyRail plan to test out the scheme that I think I have now settled upon. But two decent days of weather ahead, and I must get on with it tomorrow. More pics at the end of the week.

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Really looking forward to watching the progress Mike, i'm sure its easier than the deviation was and all that hard work and experience has stood you in good stead!  :)

 

I don't know so much Bob. They won't let me use high explosives here, the spoilsports.

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Not much to report, apart from the laying of the concrete and blocks to finish the triangle (photos to follow) is now done. Each corner is at the same level! Not sure how that happened. Construction now delayed by domestic matters and the need to finish guttering and drainage at the other end of the garden. Once finished, this will allow another area to deposit spoil, for which I am running out of room, believe it or not.

 

Anyway, I finally finished the AnyRail plan to which I intend now to dig the foundations, but no doubt this might change a bit. I hope this shows up OK. Any comments on practicability for operations, and verisimilitude for typical NG in North Wales, will be very welcome. I was going to replicate the layout at Corris, in due deference, but the "play" value, when I thought about it, is minimal. Hence this rather more extensive plan. Apart from the odd passenger, the premise of this line will be the movement of logs (far right of the plan) and stone (quarry will be on the other side of the garden) from their private sidings to the canal basin wharf, and of coal and diesel from the wharf to the stations and loco sidings. I realise I have not allowed a siding for a p/way train and will have to think about where to fit this in - it may have to go at the other end of the line, where the gangers live (St Bernard's Junction or Dedde End - we do actually live right next door to a church and a cemetery, a bit noisy on Sundays, truth be told. I have thought of complaining, but...). The reality will be that the freight and the passengers will mostly just go round in circles until the gas, or my beer, runs out.

 

I do have to think about these names a bit more, which will mean nothing to our French neighbours, who are becoming increasingly interested in the mad English plan. They cannot understand why I have not converted the entire area back into fruit trees and a cabbage patch or similar, as they do with any spare bit of dirt they can. I watch them fondly as they toil their soil, many well into their 80's, whilst I unload my very cheap fruit and veg from the Sunday market out of the car. Bless 'em. But integrate we must, so you may begin to find some strangely Gallic nomenclature entering further descriptions. Do not be put off. A little bit of Wales this will remain, but with French sandstone loads and perhaps a French loco and stock one day. Just to get my, post-Brexit, no agreement, Carte de Sejour, you understand. I will not however, under any circumstances, convert to 45mm gauge. One has to have standards. Meanwhile, back at the present......

 

The lower part of the loop, which includes the station, sidings and loco/steam up area, is adjacent to a retention wall, and is thus viewed from about chest height. I have tried in this design to ensure all points and all tracks requiring my intervention for coupling/uncoupling or adjusting steam, can be easily reached whilst leaning over this wall.

 

The upper part of the loop is just above ground level there, and will be partly be in tunnel. The "canal basin" siding may get simplified, as I have realised I will need to walk about 25 metres, including steps, to get at the vehicles for uncoupling, as well as the pointwork, unless I install some form of remote operation, which is very unlikely. Whilst it is abundantly true that I am a very lazy get, and I do need the exercise, it is also about the practicality of doing that with manually controlled locos (only two of my small fleet are radio-controlled, and one of those has a servo problem I must fix one day). Funds permitting, I hope to have a RC Silver Lady one day, just because I like the simulated drain cocks and I cannot afford any handbuilt locos that do the same, so maybe that will make it more viable. (I most certainly have neither the skills nor the time to build one of my own, at least not yet.) But meanwhile, I suspect this may get more used as a visual display rather than an operational feature.

 

Length of this section is about 16 metres, and width about 3 metres. The track to the right veers off as a single track around two sides of the garden to another flattened loop, to be built perhaps next year. The two sides of the section shown will be hidden from one another by high ground.

 

 

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  • 8 months later...

Just a small update. The weather gods have been naughty over the winter (normally pretty dry here), and we then had a major, partially collapsed roof issue, but I have got going again at last. Laid another 20 blocks over the last week, and am now half way through the station section. The plan has changed slightly, as the straight lines were too boring when I sat, and sat, and looked. So it is more curved than shown on the plan.

 

I don't intend to show more pics of concrete blocks, but I hope to have finished the station and yards foundations before we head off to see my second grandchild born, and then by the end of July, some track will have been laid and the camera relocated......

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Mike

 

Interesting to watch this progress.

 

Why have you made the crossovers in the station face the way they do? I ask, because they seem to prevent, or at least make tedious, passing up and down trains.

 

Real NG track layouts do tend to the very simple, and I sometimes think that people build over-complicated stations in 16mm/ft, which they then proceed to signal extensively, which is highly untypical of 2ft gauge, except perhaps the Lyndon & Barnstaple.

 

Kevin

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Mike

 

Interesting to watch this progress.

 

Why have you made the crossovers in the station face the way they do? I ask, because they seem to prevent, or at least make tedious, passing up and down trains.

 

Real NG track layouts do tend to the very simple, and I sometimes think that people build over-complicated stations in 16mm/ft, which they then proceed to signal extensively, which is highly untypical of 2ft gauge, except perhaps the Lyndon & Barnstaple.

 

Kevin

 

Very good point Kevin!

 

As it happens, in order to allow the platform track to turn "inland" a bit sooner on the left, and to allow a better flow on the right, I am going to reverse both crossovers. But I had not even thought about passing trains, and you are, of course, absolutely right! My freights will need to pass my stopping passenger trains, given the intensive timetable....

 

I had been basing matters on a modified Corris, but increased the options for reasons explained above. Of course, Corris only had four signals, a home and a starter in each direction, so that is all I will be providing (assuming the dog doesn't eat them) and maybe some signals on each side of the triangle (he will definitely be able to get at them there). Given the time it took me to make one signal, and make it work, on my last garden layout (only for some feral four-legged friend to flatten it after a few days) I won't be over-signalling this one. Oh, the joys of the great outdoors. Even the local toads seem to have it in for me.....I went to fetch my bucket, cement for the mixing of, only to find a couple of them hard at it in the bottom (no, no, not like that, I think, although who can tell?). Apparently, they had been told to get a room.

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  • 1 month later...

Just to keep this thread up to date, we had an unbelievable amount of rain during the spring, preventing any real progress (I cannot lay concrete in rain with an electric concrete mixer....) until now. Extreme heat had exhausted my physical abilities to sleep, let alone get up at dawn to extreme physical work. But we had a window of reasonable temperatures this weekend, with little chance of rain. So I set everything ready, with extra blocks obtained, plenty of "melange" and Portland, and set to. Five blocks later, the heavens opened. Just what is going on???

 

I managed a further five blocks when the storm had passed, but I have to get up really early on Sunday, to do another ten, by which time the station, yard and loco area will be ready for track laying. I will post photos when track is actually laid.

 

The track bender I bought and used, perhaps a decade ago, is proving elusive. I know it is there somewhere. Does anyone have some kind of prayer or chant, to elicit such things?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hallelujah! After extensive search, not only did I find the rail bender (last place I had thought of looking.of course) but I also found a host of other things I will need, including countless packs of rail joiners for Code 200 that I must have bought over the years, a couple of radii templates and some extra, recovered track from my Peterborough layout I had packed in a box underneath some pots and pans (eh?). 

 

All points (new and re-used) now placed in rough position. Plenty of flexi track placed where I will need it, including much re-claimed in various, pre-bent curvatures. Need to level off differences between certain, less than perfectly laid blocks discovered, which I will do with sand, then screw down and ballast with a mix of fast-setting cement and, allegedly nicked, road-repair granite fines, left in piles around these here parts, and misted with water (no PVA or washing up liquid needed in this medium). I have discovered certain errors in the geometry of my block laying. Hey-ho.

 

But a rise in temperature to 32 degsC, (and forecasts of up to 37 degsC for a week or so) has deferred work to the late evening or early morning. I have a deadline, 12 August, to have something running for the unbelievers coming to our annual party, but I also have to make the garden, pool, refreshments and food supply ready, which I am advised they may find more important. I have not even cleaned the BBQ yet, since it was lent to a friend last month.

 

Pics will follow when it looks decent enough to present to the connoiseurs on here.

 

The challenges of retirement.......

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One small question, if I may: how does the name of your railway stand up, if I may put it like that, when translated into French?

 

It doesn't! It means absolutely nothing to our neighbours, let alone our French bar fly friends who claim to have some knowledge of the English vernacular (I worked in London for two years etc. etc.). It is a pure, unadulterated bit of Franglais mixed with an English insult, made recently more popular by BBC3's Bluestone 42, which inexplicably never made the Top 10 of military comedies, despite being almost certainly funnier and more accurate than MASH.

 

It stands, as the "British humour" (officially pronounced by the local PMU owner, and accepted as fact by the majority, despite our mayor being a member of the Front National. The mayor has been officially advised, because you have to do that if you want to start charging entrance fees for charidee. I am not there yet. But the fees will go to something called Restaurants des Couers (in which I am a weekly volunteer, or Benevol), which is a kind of food and clothes bank, funded by the French equivalents of Bob Geldoff, except the French one is dead, and Ben Elton etc., who carry out regular benefit concerts and stage acts, plus the EU. Several of our "clients" are UK nationals who have lost their jobs, or have been put on short time. There is an equivalent lack of sympathy and enhanced suspicion of people needing our services, as there is in the UK. The most damning of the UK claimants are other UK expats - since the unmentionable referendum decision, the only Brits that come here now, and buy stuff, tend to be driving Porches, BMW's or Audis - no joke. This is the metropolitan elite France's answer, thank goodness.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have finished the block laying for the station/yard/loco/carriage siding area and have bent, cut and laid and joined most of the track (about 35 track yards so far), loose laid for the moment, bar one critical point which is screwed down as my "datum". I have found in the past that it is better to let the track "settle" and expand/contract before screwing down at key points.

 

One issue that is really bugging me, is that the new Peco points I have recently purchased and used, in a mix of L/H and R/H, are all trying to be "Y" points. I had thought it may have been my fault, either by ordering Y points by mistake (nope, the boxes all say L/H or R/H), or not storing them properly, over the last few months. But my old stock of Peco points, recovered from my garden layout in Peterborough about 6 years ago, have shown no such inclination, and the "straight" side of the points are truly straight. This is strange. I can counter the problem by screwing down to an enforced shape, but this surely should not be so? I could be bothered to check with/complain to Peco, but I can work around it.

 

Photos to follow in a week or two (weather changing here now), when the revised layout will be apparent (changes made thanks to Owd Bob's artistry elsewhere on this forum, and suggestions from others of you about the round round point directions), but not yet pretty.

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:O Thanks but you are much too kind Mike, nature do's most of the hard work if you let it. It's really good to read about more progress on your line.  :danced: I can't say i've ever had had a problem with the Peco points i have used turning into 'Y's and they've been down & around outside in all weathers for the best part of a dozen years. Are you sure they were'nt wrongly boxed and they are 'Y's?  

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:O Thanks but you are much too kind Mike, nature do's most of the hard work if you let it. It's really good to read about more progress on your line.  :danced: I can't say i've ever had had a problem with the Peco points i have used turning into 'Y's and they've been down & around outside in all weathers for the best part of a dozen years. Are you sure they were'nt wrongly boxed and they are 'Y's?  

 

 

Thanks Bob. Yes, I checked them against the two Y points I had, and they are definitely either LH or RH. The distortion is quite slight, and does not affect running, but it looks wrong when laid. As I said, a quick couple of screws into the blocks and they straighten out.

 

I know you think nature does a lot of the work, and that is true, but your initial creations are so much better than you care to admit (and very hard to copy!!).

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  • 1 month later...

Have been away for a while, due to family duties in England, but now back in harness. Main circuit foundations now all done, and just have to lay the final 30 or so blocks (about 70 already done), before finishing the track. Weather proving problematic right now but should settle soon. My phone camera is not working properly, so will locate the still missing camera and post some pics.

 

One issue I hope one or more of you may have come across, concerns installation of a SloMo. I have ordered a Silver Lady (whilst at the Bradford show - brilliant) which will be in the May 2019 batch, and wanted to install a SloMo, as well as other stuff. But apparently the operating rod for the simulated drain cocks, gets in the way of the SloMo, so Terry at SSP in Oz has told me that several people have removed the rod and done away with the drain cock operation. But one of the main reasons I wanted a Silver Lady is for the drain cocks (brilliant in cold weather)! Paul at DJB is going to try to work out a mod so I can have both, but I just wondered if any of you have come across this problem, or know someone who may?

 

Thanks

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Wow! A Silver Lady and a slo-mo ! Lovely stuff Mike! I can't say i have any personal knowledge of either but i've read about them both somewhere, maybe the Garden Rail mag' had a article about fitting a Slo-mo?  I have a few old issues i got given so i'll have a look through them for you. :D

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