Garden Railway Forum

Hello,
As the year draws to a close I thought it may be a nice idea if we all wrote a quick summary of what 2008 has meant to your railway. Here's mine:

Seibiant Hill Railway :-: 2008 Annual Report
Having obtained my first proper steam loco at the end of 2007, 2008 proved to be a good year for the Seibiant Hill Railway. The first major happenings took place at Easter, having installed the boards for Seibiant Isaf we christened the temporarily laid track with a catastrophic de-railment (currently under investigation, report due out soon) when a visiting ‘Tom Rolt’ class had its cab badly bent.

Shortly afterwards the loop was laid and services were able to run to their full potential.

It was found that ‘Isabelle’ had wound its self out of time during April and Pentrefelin Loco Works kindly reset it and not only is it capable of slow running, but it has also enhanced the power. Then in June ‘Isabelle’ was stripped down for modifications, details of this can be seen elsewhere.

It was also decided that the time be taken to re-lay the mamod track with ex Glan-yr-Afon wooden sleepered track, this has greatly improved running with significantly less de-railments caused when running home stock.

I also attempted to ballast the elevated section which looked good for a while but began to fall off. We have also produced 3 waggons that have been sold to other railways and it is likely that construction of a rake of 6 slate wagons for another railway will begin before the new year, this all provides income which with the exception of an MP3 player has been poured back it to the railway.

Stock Additions
Heywood 4w Brakevan (Scratchbuilt)
3rd Class Ffestiniog Railway Bug Box (IMP Models kit, now sold)
Ffestiniog Early Brakevan (IMP Models kit, awaiting completion)
FfR 3T Slate Waggon (Coopercraft kit)
16mm Association Junior free wagon (Brandbright kit)
IofM 4w Guard/3rd Class (Accucraft RTR)
Ffestiniog Railway Observation Carr. 102 (Scratchbuilt, awaiting completion)
Ffestiniog Railway 3rd Class Bug Box (I.P kit)
Ffestiniog Railway Quarrymen’s Brakevan (I.P Engineering kit, un-built, will be a Christmas present)
Large brass slate wagon (Scratchbuilt, awaiting assembly)

Loco Additions
Wickham Trolley (Locolines kit)
Kerr Stuart 0-4-0 diesel (Locolines, unbuilt)
Baguley 0-6-0 diesel (Accucraft, fitted with RCS R/C, sound and re-chagable batterys)

We have also seen visitors from 4 railways and visited some 8 railways, with one more on the cards at Christmas.

A good year?


Most Deffiantley!

Will, tis a good idea, so here goes a lot.

The Mawnan & Helford Light Railway :-: 2008 Annual Report

The arrival of my Accucraft Edrig, which was scheduled for Christmas 2007, eventually came on my birthday instead in 2008 (due to Mike Ousby's backlog of R/C or something similar).



Construction of the railway had started in Summer 2007 with the main ground works, so with the arrival of the brand spanking new shiny red Edrig raring to run, it really motivated me to get the railway finished.



The railway was "complete" (you know what I mean) in Summer 2008, a trip to Stoneleigh saw the arrival of a IP Jack 0-6-0 diesel fitted with RCS radio control, and the first open day of the line was held in August, which brought a Roundhouse Bertie permantly to the MHLR.



The first platform at Helford Halt has been installed, and some track realignments were done because of some derailments with the larger locos at the open day.
A trip to the Exeter Garden Railway Show saw the purchase of a Roundhouse Fowler, complete with R/C, lamp, front buffer beam and cab cladding.



We have also created a Simplex loco for a "local" railway, and rebuilt another battery electric for another.
Over the Christmas holidays, maintainance on locos and trackwork will be carried out, and moving into 2009, will see phase 2 of the MHLR  ;)

Stock Additions since Jan 1st 2008:

Accucraft W&LLR open wagon
Small lollypop open coach (on PW)
Green ex-GVT coach (now sold onto another line)
3 mineral wagons
3 matching style coaches (2 coaches, 1 gaurds)
Scratchbuilt open bogie coach
Large open wagon (free from SMT)
3 weathered LGB coaches (2 coaches, 1 gaurds)

We saw visitors here from over 8 different railways all over the county of Cornwall, and visits to 9 railways with a 2nd visit to one planned on New Years day.

Good year at the MHLR?
Yes, very good, just like the SHR has had.

Let's see then...

Misbourne Valley Railway :-: 2008 Annual Report

2008 has been a significant year for the MVR, with some important new arrivals and a long-running project reaching completion.

On 16th February, our Bachmann Lyn arrived, bringing the MVR's loco fleet to four. A new bogie coach also arrived with her, but this is still in store awaiting a decision on how best to adapt it for MVR use.



By July, the new Box End station was finally finished after two years of work!



Then at the end of August, a signalbox was acquired for Rutton. This fulfilled an objective from the earliest days of the railway, to provide a building to cover the leads used for the power supply.



The most recent arrival is our free open wagon, courtesy of the 16mm Association. It is hoped that this can be constructed over the Christmas holidays; it will take the number T2 when complete. An LGB open wagon has also been loaned to the railway.

Sadly, the year has been less successful operationally, with A-levels (and, in the early part of the year, a Saturday job) once again limiting the amount of time I have had to run trains. Another disappointment was that I was not able to attend this year's Stoneleigh show. However, we did have a highly successful open day in July, when we were joined by a number of guests from the Ruislip Lido Railway Society. The entire MVR fleet was in action, along with three visitors from the Woodrow Light Railway: a Roundhouse Millie and Fowler and an Accucraft Edrig.





Therefore, 2008 has probably been one of the MVR's best years to date, and I hope we can build on this success in 2009!

The Woodrow railways annual report

since its constuction this year the Woodrow has quickly changed its bumps have been smoothed out and it track layout changed several times.
and it has turned ino what Iv been told by other modellers to be 1 of the best railway first time railways run on a small budget they have ever seen!







first steam loco


track down


first run


first steam run






oh how its changed!







its been a good year for sure

I like this! Think i'll have a go

Afonglas and Nant Llywyd Railway :-: 2008 Annual Report

Well 2008 has seen a quite a few changes to the railway. At the year start the main line had only been complete for half a month and was in need of scenic improvement. However this was down on the agender as the railway had to exdend into the town of Afonglas and establish a terminus, with run round loop, carriage siding and 2 road locomotive shed.
At the begining of the year, Afonglas station area looked like this

However progess was quite rapid to the extent that the terminus was operational with a platform by April and the loco shed was commisioned on September 7th (see my avater ) although the lines had been in use earlier. Now in december, the station building for Afonglas is finished and is just awaiting fixing down with sillicon sealent.
The other major change was up the valley, where the bad joint in the middle of the tunnel was tolerated no longer after a mid June gala event. There had also been an incident involving an oversized Heywood style breakvan becoming stuck, as well as a problem with a visiting engine with a tall replacement chimney. It was not felt nesscery to call in the HMRI although an internal enquiry that led to the entire upper section of the railway being rebuilt. This was achieved over the early summer, the new alignment was opened towards the end of July. This was a great effort, involving the demolition of a suprisingly resiliant wooden shed, although the attempted use of a reality bomb on the shed failed, because as it turned out, this is not actually a bomb. So we used bigs hammers and a crow bar insted.


The rebuild also saw the opening of the new upper terminus Nant Llywyd and the expansion of the slate quarry.

Into next year, the railway company very much hopes to complete the work in this area and make it an attractive area in which to view trains, the ventalation shaft and the incline have already proved to be features of interest to visiters.
There has also been a slow, but steady increase in the carriage fleet, the introduction of specialist observation and buffet carriages has caused great interest when visiting other railways. The begining of the year also saw the introduction of some new freight stock.



The locomotive fleet has remained virtually unchanged, although as I write the new steam locomotive is sitting in its box awaiting first steaming trials. Meanwhile improvements have been carried out to the present fleet, Caradoc had a full overhaul in January although its radio control system fitted late last year has required occasional fettling to keep it reliable. The loco also suffred 2 failures with the right hand back crank pin comming loose, although the engineer hopes that this has been permanantly fixed. The loco was also 2 months out of traffic whilst the regulator fitting for the radio control was modified.

The other steam loco Gwydion has been very reliable, with just a single failure, of the lubricator drain screw to report. The loco has returned to service to work santa trains following some slight cosmetic work (painting buffer beam backs black and tydying lining).
A total battery failure marred the diesel Caeronwy Castles year, although since replacement the engine has been a great runner.
I would like to thank everyone who has visited the ANLR with or without engines for visiting and making steamups the succeses they were (i've lost count of the number of visiting engines i've had!), and also the 10 railways I have visited this year for the hospitality.
Stock additions from 1st January 2008
2 IP engineering open wagons
Scratchbuilt observation car based on Ffestiniog number 11
Scratchbuilt Welsh Highland railway buffet car
Scratchbuilt freelance bogie composite break
1 IP engineering van
Various Coopercraft slate waggons
IP engineering pure and simple 4 wheel open carriage
and 1 Roundhouse live steam loco (all will be revealed soon!)
I have also undertaken the contract building of and IP engineering 4 wheel Vale of Rheidol guards van for the Silverdale light railway North
Good year? Well certainly busy, the weather let things down a bit but I would say yes, a very good year for the Afonglas and Nant Llywyd railway, I have 2 termini now, a reasonably large run and best of all I don't have a silly 3 foot radius curve inside a rabbit hole of a tunnel

my turn now

The Dinorwic light railway anual report

2008 has seen many changes to the line. The year started with a major rebuild of the lower section to remove the troublesome curve. Shortly after that a new stam loco arrived in the shape of a Finescle Peckett

After the AGM diesil power was introduced in the form of a IP enginnering Jack

During early summer Bertie had to go back to Roundhouse for all new motion parts to be fitted. Well it had done 150 real miles.The line also had its first open day which i think everyone enjoyed. The rest of the summer involved visits to many lines and a couple of shows. During the summer a new loco had been built in the lines own work shops, a small Dewinton type loco.

Autumn saw the lines mascot loco fail spectacularly, resulting in new pistons and glands. Telegarph poles and watering facilaties were added at Llanberis. All in all busy year. Next year will hopefully see a new scratch built loco (that works)and some better track facilities

Good year?

OF course