Garden Railway Forum

Working on the waterfall and the waves/ripples Scrat, Updated photos soon.

Of bigger news is the fact the the Melbourne weather has been a bit better and I have braced myself and ventured out into the garden. Last weekend I gathered up all my old LGB track sections and started laying out what I had. I wanted to see if I could do anything useful without buying any more track. Turns out I have enough to make a simple oval of track with a passing siding. Nothing major only about 4m overall with 600mm radius curves.

I don't really have that much flat, level space but I do have a slightly raised flower bed that is wide enough and might be long enough to fit it in. I spent a bit of time starting to prune back some overgrowth, pull out some dead/dying plants and generally policing the site. There are some bigger landscaping rocks to deal with and leveling will be interesting but I think it could work. Next step is to get the site ready and maybe get some pegs and string lines up so I can get a sense of the lay of the land.

I'm thinking of using concrete blocks set on their sides on a bed of tamped down roadway gravel base. Based on the way the garden has behaved I think any kind of wood will rot quickly. I really only want to have to do this once and have limited ongoing maintenance.

Quite the new adventure and I'm look forward to having something up and running by late springtime.

Sounds promising. Keep us updated as to progress.

Rik

Too cold and wet( and I've been lazy) to play much in the garden so I'm chipping away at adding to my rolling stock.


This is my attempt at the P.S Models coach kit. It contains some very nice laser cut wooden pieces with plastic wheels and some bar stock for axles and such. I have built a number of these kits and they have all been excellent. I have already built and painted the chassis as it's much the same on all the kits I've built. It's builds easily and comes out square and runs well built straight from the kit.


The coach kit is a bit special in that it has so many windows and will need at least a basic interior. I felt that the windows were a bit on the larges size and as I need to add glazing I roughed in some frames with plastic strip. Then added some wooden strips to add some raised framing to hopefully add some bling to the outside. Then some more bits for a door handle and we have something a bit more detailed. So far I've detailed half the sides but wanted to work out a paint scheme before doing the rest. The interior is from coloured card stock and will have some other little bits added as I go. I have some resin figures on order to add a human touch and I'll need to modify the provided bench seats to make them a bit nicer.








So far a wonderful kit which has been a lot of fun.

Very nice alterations to the vehicle side panels and interiors. Loving the paint work, that will be perfect on your layout.

DCooper wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2026 9:18 am This is my attempt at the P.S Models coach kit.

Your modelling is outstanding. I really like what you do with the PS models kits. I must say I have a soft spot for them and have built a few - they are simple but well proportioned, well thought out and as you say, go together solidly. But your imagination in finishing and detailing them absolutely takes them to another level entirely - wonderful stuff.

You're really dressing that little coach up, nice work.
Love your painting style, it looks like an oil painting.

Thank you gentlemen for your kind comments. A lot more to be done before I'm finished and I can't wait till my figures arrive. This has been a great project for staying inside while it's wet and miserable.

The bigger goal has been getting out into the garden.

On and off for some time while the weather is been good I have been out in the garden terraforming my way to getting some track down. I only have a small section that I can play in and not a lot of track to make a simple oval. The relatively level easy bits are started. While its very much just roughly laid it's pretty level and runs okay so far. The hard part is the second curved section which will need raising up and some kind of retaining wall structure. I'll have to do some weatherproofing of the timber and, well the list goes on and on. Great fun tough.



This is a video of the first short runs on the track. LocoRemote worked great and the tiny little loco ran surprisingly well outside.

https://photos.smugmug.com/WIP-Models/H ... 1-1280.mp4

Once I get the loop up and running I'll work on converting my LGB Porter to battery power ( here's to hoping Locoremote can gets some computer chips to make some more controlers!) Then maybe a live steamer!

A man's got to have dreams.

Stay safe and well, I have a little more time before the rains come tonight.

Okay that was an easier way to add a video. I hope you will forgive my technical ignorance.

I hope this new video thing doesn't send me down any rabbit holes

DCooper wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2026 4:22 am [media]https://www.Y-T.com/watch?v=MEUSKkGquHA[/media]

Okay that was an easier way to add a video. I hope you will forgive my technical ignorance.

There is an even easier way to add the video. You don't need all the 'media' tags and the "youtube.com/watch..." stuff. Simply copy the the Youtube link and put that directly into your post.
i.e Put "https:" then directly followed by the rest of your link: //youtu.be/MEUSKkGquHA

Good to see you outside in the garden.
Grant.

Worked a bit inside today on the waterfall.

Not being critical because I know from experience that water is difficult to model and fast moving water even more so and you are making a good stab at it. However to look as 'white' as you have it implies a lot of turbulence and in that case there would be a lot of spray and the surrounding rocks would be wet and probably a bit green from algae/moss if nothing else.

A fair assessment Phillip.

I have started to gloss up the area and will be adding more moss and wet vegetation in the future. So hopefully I can make it look a bit better. I'm very much learning as I go. I did this waterfall as a challenge to see what I could come up with. I haven't done much of any water before and have found it simultaneous easy and difficult. With the right materials it's easy to get a pretty good result but darn difficult to make it look real. Water behaves in some, to me weird, ways that I'm barely understanding.

If I were to do this again the whole upper rock area would need changing as would the lower receiving pond. I don't think I would try to do this much in this small an area and I would make the height of the bridge much higher. The bridge would be of a more see though design and well, the list goes on and on. The silicon caulking I used isn't anywhere near as clear as I would like but I had it to hand and didn't test any other brands/types. The shape of the falls could be better and more tapered. I did learn that I could make something that looks presentable and I only learn by doing so I'm choosing to call this a win/draw.

( I do think that getting one of those vape pen things to blow 'mist' in would be neat but I don't have the skill to do that other than as a effect for photos.)

On wards and upwards as they say.

Here's a couple I saw last year (on Nov 5th as it happens).

Rik

And another They all have some whispiness on each side. Not sure how you can simulate that

Rik