Garden Railway Forum

You are so right there Dazza. Fun has always been my motto since I and now Anne more recently have been on our journey with garden railways. I don't know if you get a TV channel where you live called Yesterday, it was showing the History of British Steam and there was a train called a Railcoach, I think that's what it was called, (memory) It had two coaches at the front, then a steam loco and another two coaches at the back. The driver was in the front coach of the train driving the loco by linking rods connected to the loco's levers, the Fireman was in the loco keeping an ever watchful eye on the levers. The driver was able to tell the fireman what he wanted the him to do with the operation of the brakes of the train, by a signalling him by a bell that was located in the front coach. When the got to the end of the line, instead of turning the loco around, the driver just walked to the back of the train into the last coach and drove the train from the now front of it.

Amazing what we have learnt about railways and that's the fun for me, finding out about the history and building and running our own line.

Thanks for that Dazza. I fully understand and totally agree with all you've said.
I once actually recorded how long it took me to scratchbuild a 4mm scale "Dean Single" loco and it came in at just over 600 hours, at a time when a labour rate would have been around £20 an hour. Who would have paid me £12,000 for it back in the 1980's or (theoretically it is now worth £36,600), today?

Unfortunately, in today's world there seems increasingly to be a trend for people to, as Oscar Wilde once said "know the price of everything and the value of nothing". I think the majority of garden railway modellers value the right things in life. There's not a lot which beats relaxing in the garden on a pleasant summer's evening watching a train which you have (mostly) built yourself, chugging or chuffing through a landscape which you have largely engineered yourself!

Rik

Bridge work Sunday at the POR

Chair person of the Potters Orchid Railway's board of directors is also the head horticulturist and was engaged in planting tasks as the final bridge work was underway.

The water flows down and under the MVL bridge at the Potters Orchid Railway as the directors sat with their Red wine in hand. Comments from their observations of the changing light conditions flowed freely, such as "What would Turner do on a good canvas with this ? "

Videos, the water flows

https://www.flickr.com/photos/llewellyn ... ed-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/llewellyn ... ed-public/

First steam over the bridge.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/llewellyn ... ed-public/

J.M.W.Turner would have loved it I'm sure! He was greatly inspired by railway scenes (see.... 'Rain, Steam and Speed') and would have painted wonderful sprays from the cascading water with rainbow effects above your magnificent bridge.... artists of today don't have his imagination I fear.

Peter Butler wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 11:07 pm J.M.W.Turner would have loved it I'm sure! He was greatly inspired by railway scenes (see.... 'Rain, Steam and Speed') and would have painted wonderful sprays from the cascading water with rainbow effects above your magnificent bridge.... artists of today don't have his imagination I fear.

Yes, perhaps.
As a young lad reading railway books a picture of "Rain Steam and Speed" is what sparked my interest in the joys of Turner's work. Visits to the Tate during one of our UK visits and also to Canberra when they brought a collection of his works.
Alas, I am yet to see the real painting at the UK National Gallery, maybe next time in myabe 5 years time when the C19 mess may have petered out. (also I may have finished my loco build and will bring it to the UK ) Also a good movie has been done of Turner's later years. How close to reality that was ?

Dazza how pleased you and MAM must be. At last you have got the waterfall running in the, what words can describe that gorge. It has all been said though, wonderful, superb, fantastic, there are loads more. I could lose myself in my imagination if I was there Dazza.

MAM's Lady Anne looked great running over the brilliant bridge.

FWLR wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:02 am Dazza how pleased you and MAM must be. At last you have got the waterfall running in the, what words can describe that gorge. It has all been said though, wonderful, superb, fantastic, there are loads more. I could lose myself in my imagination if I was there Dazza.

MAM's Lady Anne looked great running over the brilliant bridge.

Thank you, yes, we are pleased, it has been fun so far. It will be so much nicer when the mud in the pathway is removed and decent paths are put in, but that is still some months away. I am on full size steam this weekend, it has been a while. So this weekend is the first in some months that I will leave our home and leave the POR all alone. Friday night steam ups this summer is the goal.

Really looking forward to photos and videos of your Friday night steams with great anticipation Dazza.

Orchid House loop at the "Potters Orchid Railway posed some rock supply challenges, but during the week a convenient answer came to mind. At Dazza's family's Brisbane home which is on stumps there is some granite and coloured sand stone rock that lay underneath the front verandah. It was here 50 years ago that a young Dazza who was inspired by a Lady Bird Book on roads created highways from sifted dirt and made into mud and then troweled into a two lane freeway with over pass bridges made from suitable bits of wood for many Lego trucks to travel over. The rocks were part of this landscape in the dirt under the family home, now what better way to use these in the Potters Orchid Railways terra forming process. So a few trips with the Dunny Door station wagon to the family home where Mum still resides, some heaving and dragging had them transported to a new home to the POR. Then the pondering, channeling Slartibartfast, heaving, perspiration, grunts, a plan was formed. Oh, and MAM's ceramic tunnel portals were glued into place.

Saturday arvo, 60kg of cement is mixed to fill the trenches and relocate the main key rocks back into place. More grunting and cursing was echoing over the landscape of the POR. They never seem to go back the same but....#@&!*(%#!!# Then at knock off time, while sucking on a cold Beer as the sun left us the head labourer ponders tomorrow's work plan while the head POR director was grinding the bases of some of her potter creativity.

Along the time line of the past weekend at the POR the head horticulturist, head director and chairperson of the POR was contemplating her Bonsai tree locations, some new plantings and checking the progress of recent plantings. Only one little fella has keeled over so a good report will be presented to the next POR board meeting.

Sunday morning, the workforce of the POR had a cooked breakfast and the once a month Bacon ration was issued. :-) "Charge and take no prisoners !" was the cry that followed. MAM did a resource/material run to the big green YUK corporation warehouse that we are all becoming slaves to for materials, cement, mortar, mortar colour and more plants :-) . Work progress was on the detail fill in rocks and mortar. Soil fill be added during the week and more planting will occur. With good fortune the rocks and mortar will weather to a pleasing visual effect, considering it is a garden railway, not a scale model railway. To quote from Monkey,
"Time and the pure essences of Heaven, the moisture of the Earth,
the powers of the sun and the moon
All worked upon a certain rock, old as creation.
And it became magically fertile.
That first egg was named "Thought".
Tathagata Buddha, the Father Buddha, said,
"With our thoughts, we make the world."
So MAM and I hope to make this little world for us and others to enjoy.

Thanks Dazza.
I'm pretty sure that I can speak for the "others" when I say that we have all enjoyed the journey thus far and see no reason at all to doubt that the future will be equally enjoyable, if not even more so.

Just brilliant Dazza, I am soooo jealous of MAM's portals, far better than mine.

I will show them when I get a chance to fix them to our tunnel...

Your photo's are a real pleasure to see and admire. Waiting to see more soon...

That's an impressive array of brake cables, Dazza. Are they all destined to control signals? If so, that end of your railway will end up like Clapham Junction .....

Rik

ge_rik wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:20 am That's an impressive array of brake cables, Dazza. Are they all destined to control signals? If so, that end of your railway will end up like Clapham Junction .....

Rik

Rik they are for Signals and work off a working interlocked frame. If you scroll back to at least page 16 of the POR thread you will find posts and pics of the process.