Garden Railway Forum

Id appreciate some thoughts on a new railway I'm planning on building, (also a possible name for it), I'm looking to build it on bricks, with a simple loop, and a few sidings, (space restrictions doesn't leave much more room for anything else).

Here's a couple of pics of the area and the proposed layout

Hi Jon,

I am a fan of the smaller railway as it means you can get it finished within a decent time frame to run trains.

How about calling it the RUTT (Railway Under The Tree) railway...

I'm a fan of the smaller ones too, less effort to build, and can be made more detailed

Looking at your photo I assume you want to run at the higher level. Access to your French door may be restricted by the curve and shunting track. I would suggest moving the grey box and then putting the oval of track to the point where the grey box is now if you have a bit more room towards that black tub.

We don't use the French doors, the track bed will come in line with the Cill of the door, and ill put a couple of small flags in as a road for access to the door, the grey box will be moved out the way, I was just looking at where id be able to fit it in the yard while still having some room for the kids to play out, (there seems to be doors every wall in the yard, this was I think the easiest solution)

Excellent solution, I was mistakenly thinking that the blocks were higher than the cill, but at the level you suggest no problem,

There is a slope which you cant really see in the pic, towards the house, so at the house its level with the cill, at the opposite end you may be able to see a red dot that shows the level on one of the blocks, about half way up one

Looks like a good idea. Crossing in front of the window at cill level should look really good. Be careful not to cover the air brick though, or restrict the flow of air to it.

I look forward to seeing the railway grow.

Andrew

Soar Valley Light:119555 wrote:Looks like a good idea. Crossing in front of the window at cill level should look really good. Be careful not to cover the air brick though, or restrict the flow of air to it.

I look forward to seeing the railway grow.

Andrew

That's a point I've already thought about, and a very good one!!! I'll be forming some sort of brickwork around it, around four inch from the wall to stop any obstructions, and maybe a rain hatch too

This is looking like a really interesting build. If it were me I would take your blocks up to either side of the airbrick and then install a piece of wood something like a piece of decking. This would be easy enough to do because I think those blocks can be cut with a wood saw quite easily. Just inset the decking into the block with a cutout initially. This will allow you to get the track up and running. Then later develop the wood/decking into a bridge. In fact one of the most effective bridges i've seen was a piece of decking suitable painted with short metal uprights/posts with chain hung between them running down either side. Very narrow gauge.....
Incidentally some of the best and most atmospheric lines on this forum are the small space ones like Mr Bonds for instance...
Keep us updated on your build I think i'm going to enjoy this one...
Barry

That wasn't what I was thinking, but will work much better, thanks for the idea

Ive been looking at what items ive got in boxes that I can use, so far ive found from modeltown, an area of figures, some painted some not, a signal box, coal hut, vertical boiler unit, and shop front/pub, also some creates, barrels, and wooden barrels. Various wagons from ip engineering, beenie, coopercraft, and andel (which ive posted elsewhere on the forum) and a scratchbuilt tank loco, running on a ip engineering chassis, also parts for an earlier metal chassis from ip engineering. Plenty to keep me busy painting and assembling, in a lot of cases repairing

A photo of the rolling stock ive found, excuse the state of some of it

Like the stock, I've come to the conclusion that short trains of small wagons or coaches are more fun