Garden Railway Forum

Spades? Spades? Spades!
I have heard of these devices.....
But in all seriousness, I wanted a digger in for three main reasons.
Firstly the amount of muck I wanted to move would have taken far to long to shift by hand. Secondly the soil is full of roots and rocks and is a swine to shift by hand. Thirdly a digger is much more fun!!!!!

I have resorted to the time honoured method of railway construction the pick and shovel. I was up there in the rain for hours this afternoon and managed to move what would have taken about an hour in the digger.

I had wanted to clear an area about 15' by 12' and drop it by 4' to allow for the shed and a reasonably flat railway base.

There is no way I can devote the time needed to move this amount by hand so there will be a few changes to the plans.

Mind you the old bloke up the road who owns the local (now disused) quarry has offered dynamite!

I will continue tomorrow if my joints will let me.

Onwards and Upwards, or in my case downwards.

Big Jim:93237 wrote:Mind you the old bloke up the road who owns the local (now disused) quarry has offered dynamite!

This could possibly top the fun factor of using a digger

Some Pics.


DSC_0167 by bigjimiflash, on Flickr[/img]
The alps from base camp.


DSC_0170 by bigjimiflash, on Flickrmg]
The slopey problem


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DSC_0172 by bigjimiflash, on Flickr
The area I wanted to drop by 4ft and remove the stumps.

Sorry Jim, lots of letters but no pics!

Pics now up.
Sorry about the gargantuan size but I can't seem to resize them. If you click on the images you can see them on flickr in a much more user friendly size.

Quite a bit of work you got to do there, progress looks good though

Finally sorted the pics out.
Now this may sound like bravado but I intend to have some track laid and a train running on the lower section by the time it gets dark on monday

If you look at the picture of the garden from below there is a retaining wall in front of the shed. The plan is to have raised track on posts on this bit and then curve round the shed onto the ground behind.

I can quite see why you wanted to use a digger, that's quite an undertaking. Will be interested to see how it goes.

I think it looks worse on screen than it is in real life. It is a great pity the digger wouldn't go in, perhaps in the drier weather it might stand a chance but that means a delay in the schedule.
I still think you can do it.
How about a slightly improved offer to your young friend to carry out some exercise with one of those new fangled shovels?

DSC_0173 by bigjimiflash, on Flickr[/img]
Yes we are above roof hight!
The garden continues behind the picture another 60ft but the slope has got really silly by then.

Peter Butler:93231 wrote:

laalratty:93227 wrote:A great pity, driving a digger is surely second only to driving a train when it comes to what every young boy wants to do when they grow up

Please explain.... 'grow up'?

It's something that my parents say I've not done yet....

How about a slightly improved offer to your young friend to carry out some exercise with one of those new fangled shovels?

Lazy little swine managed 4 blocks before he gave up and said it was too hard. Mind you, you should have seen the coughing fit

laalratty:93249 wrote:

Peter Butler:93231 wrote:

laalratty:93227 wrote:A great pity, driving a digger is surely second only to driving a train when it comes to what every young boy wants to do when they grow up

Please explain.... 'grow up'?

It's something that my parents say I've not done yet....

I'm pretty sure this "Growing up" malarky is the optional part isn't it?

Stopped growing up at 16 and started growing out, much more fun. Oh well back to the digging.

Success of a sort.
I have managed to finish digging the footings out for the shed. I have not gone as deep as I would have liked but frankly life is too short and my already bad joints would have gone out on strike at the prospect.

A large area has been cleared of undergrowth and 30ft of well tangled pig netting.

Three posts have been installed and treated with the garden railwaymans friend, real creosote.

A length of old timber was fitted in place and two yards of track nailed down.

And finally the first train on the Pentremorgan Mountain Railway actually ran!!!!!!!

Now I know that two yards of track do not a garden railway make, but its two more yards than I had this morning.

Sorry I forgot to add the pictures.

DSC_0177 by bigjimiflash, on Flickr[/img]

The first post support in place.

DSC_0176 by bigjimiflash, on Flickr[/img]

General view of the lower part of the line. The track will run on posts along the top of the wall in the foreground and swing around into a cutting behind the shed. Then it will run along the ground before going on to posts again and joining up to make an oval.

I want to add a line to go futher up the slope. This will branch of just in front of the shed and after a dhr style spiral will go to a ground level terminus just below where the fresh earth is up the bank. This was the area I wanted to lower by 4 or 5 foot.

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DSC_0180 by bigjimiflash, on Flickr

That's wonderful Jim... well done!
I think you have seen through the initial obstacles and managed to get started. It's downhill (or should that be uphill?) from now on.

Always good to make a start and get something running, should be quite a dramatic bit of line with that slope!

I think that perhaps I should look at changing the topic heading to something more appropriate.

Still not sure about the name of the line though, it just seems to have stuck.

Congratulation Jim!

I can see this is a big step (no pun intended!) for you and your railway . You've certainly overcome some technical and geographical difficulties to get to this stage.

I have to say, I'm not sure I'd have fancied working a mini digger on that slope. They can be unstable little blighters!

Anyway, I'm a long way from cutting the first sod on my own railway but I take great encouragement from seeing what you've achieved. I look forward to seeing your line develop.

All the best,

Andrew