Building a Garden Railway Part VI

Not much progress on the line recently - I am lacking a few sets of points before I can progress further with track laying so I started converting my 45mm stock over to 32mm gauge. Why do you own 45mm stock I hear you ask...well, my hand was forced by the purchase of a 45mm Cheddar Iver, leading to the purchase of a large collection of 45mm stock and locos, which now all require conversion to 32mm. I started with the basic conversion of LGB and Bachmann G scale stock.

This was a simple process of turning down the treads of the wheels to stop them bumping along the chairs of the track, then driving out the steel axle from the moulded plastic wheels, lopping a few mil of each one, then pressing back together. Although an easy task, it was very boring - especially on a big bogie wagon! So to relieve the boredom I ran a train with the converted wagons!

The loco pulling the train is a Mamod William I. These new generation Mamod locos have received bad press, I, however have found this particular locomotive to be a very powerful and long running loco once the condensate is cleared from the cylinders. As an aside, this loco was bought secondhand from Forest Classics after being used as a sales demonstrator and was the loco appearing in the How It's Made segment on Mamod shown on Discovery Channel.

The Engineer.

Building a Garden Railway Part V

The moment you have all been waiting for - a train going round and around! Further progress was made on the garden railway today - the bridge was completed to a degree where the track could be laid and a light train run. I would like to fix a leg underneath the bridge just to support it in the middle as it is not as sturdy as I would like.

The bridge was re-enforced with strips of wood which kerfed to allow them to bend around the edge of the baseboard already cut. A strip was fitted each side of the board and these were then crossed braced with further strips across the board. The track was then fitted down and I decided to fire up a loco!

And some video...

The Engineer.

The Great Dorset Steam Fair 2013

After spending almost a fortnight at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, my wallet came back lighter and the project list longer! I managed to pick up these items from the autojumble...

The engine on the left is from an old Marklin steam plant, at the moment it is seized but is currently being soaked in oil to free it up. I like the idea of building a generating plant to illuminate the garden railway with it as the chance of finding the matching boiler is very slim. The Rocket coach is something I have been after for a while to go with my Hornby Rocket set - it has a few steps missing and one of the buffers is damaged but I like it!

The two books are for my 'library' and the oil cans and grease gun are for my collection of these items - yes another thing I collect! The small brass items are to go in the might be useful one day box...

I partook in the steam roller world record challenge to get the most steam rollers rolling a single stretch of road in one day - they managed 102 rollers - the line up at the end was quite impressive. Unfortunately, due to the sheer size of it I was unable to get a photograph of the line up, however, aerial photographs were taken and these can be seen on the GDSF website. Below is a photograph of the rollers arriving in the ring ready for the lineup.

The Engineer.

Building a Garden Railway Part IV

Today, I feel like Brunel...

Made more progress on the line today by filling the big gap between the door. To be able to use the shed the door must be able to be opened, so this demanded a removable section. I had plans of making a hinged bridge, but the length of the section would have needed a taller roof to fully hinge and I didn't fancy making an elaborate set of sliders to allow it to drop down and under the boards so just went for a lift out section.

The bridge rests on an Aluminium bracket on each side of the gap which are drilled to accept locating bolts to ensure correct alignment of the track. The bridge section itself is made from 1/4" plywood and is cut to follow the shape of the track in this section. At the moment, it has not been reinforced hence the sagging in the middle, but bracing will be attached to strengthen the structure.

I will of course be making the bridge look a bit better than just a sheet of plywood and will be attaching some form of bridge shaped structure around it - I fancy something Brunelian in design - not very narrow gauge but I am a big fan of Brunel's work and it's my railway so I shall do what I like with it!

The Engineer.

Building a Garden Railway Part III

I intended on not running a train on the line until I had a complete circle but the urge of having a steam up proved to big to resist! After laying about half of the line I decided to fire up my Merlin Major locomotive to try the track out. My excuse for this was to shunt the wagon I was using to hold the track screws around...the application of steam locomotion to this resulted in considerably reduced productivity!

Notice the authentic MDF dust weathered finished...

The Engineer.

Power Steering in 1933

Thought you might all find this interesting - I assume anyone reading this is very similar to me and I did! A friend of mine is the owner of a unique Marshall VB class tandem steam roller. This was a late build for a steam engine and was designed to roll the newly introduced tarmac roads. The engine incorporated various unusual features for a road engine such as a vertical boiler, enclosed duplex engine, piston valves and Hackworth valve gear.

Most interesting of all is the steam steering apparatus which uses a small 3 cylinder radial engine driving the steering shaft via a chain drive. This engine is operated by a lever that is pulled from one side to the other to reverse the direction of motion. Unfortunately, this engine is rather all or nothing and without experience it can get on top of you!

Unfortunately, for the fortunes of the traction engine builders, modern designs like this came too late to make much of an impact on the market. The unusual features of this roller such as the steering wheel being turned right to go left and the impracticality of firing on the move made engines like this unfavorable for the roller drivers of the day. By this time, early IC engined rollers were becoming more popular, and these designs never really caught on, with the last of the traditional steam rollers carrying on into the early 1960's. A good design but about 20 years too late.

This roller can be seen at the Great Dorset Steam Fair's roller special exhibit among 100+ other steam rollers.

The Engineer.

Building a Garden Railway Part II

Some progress on the line! The boards have been built around the shed - excluding the section in front of the door of course, a removable bridge will be fitted here. I acquired 3 identical tables tables for free and by cutting these in half have managed to save a lot of time in base board construction only having to build a small section of framework for where I ran out of table! These have then been covered with 18mm MDF sheets to provide the track bed, not the best material for the task, but I had some lying around so used it.

In this photo the track is just placed on the boards to judge where I wanted lines to run and nothing is fixed down yet. The locos are rolling stock are just balanced on the track as I couldn't resist the urge to do so - excluding the small open wagon they are all 45mm rather than 32mm gauge so aren't even sat on the track properly. I am rather fond of my enamel signs which I think make the inside of the shed look fantastic - I like to think of it as my man cave!

The Engineer.

Building a Garden Railway Part I

Hello again,

Both of us have been very busy over the past few months being back at home and have a backlog of various projects we must show you! I am going to start off with showing the progress on my garden railway so far.

I have been wanting to build a railway in the garden for around ten years but have never got around to it. A shed was built for the line to start from, but this got filled with masses of rubbish when we had our extension. Finally, this summer, I bit the bullet and bought a big bundle of Peco SM32 track and decided to make a start!

I have further progress on the line to add, but shall stagger the posts between posts on other projects.

The Engineer.

Emma II

Sorry my posts have dropped off for a while, been so very busy, however in amongst some of the "proper" work I have managed to get some interesting projects in the shop! Here's one of them, Emma I's replacement Emma II has finally received her necessary makeover, seen here sporting her safari style look with the old homemade roof rack... I'll post some more odd projects in the coming weeks, .......

The Carpenter.

Wilesco D21 Rebuild

I recently acquired this Wilesco D21 from eBay for a very reasonable 39 quid! It needed some work to get it back into working order which I think is what put people off. The D21 is the only model in the current Wilesco range that is fitted with a boiler feed pump which allows continuous running of the engine with the boiler topped up during operation. The majority of the pump components were missing along with the chimney and the boiler bushes for the whistle and pressure gauge had been pulled out.

The Wilesco D21 as it arrived.

I spent an hour the other day disassembling the engine into it's component parts. I soldered the boiler bushes back into the boiler and all seems to be sound there. Upon disassembly I noticed the paint was in slightly worse condition than I initially thought so I decided that I had may as well repaint it before putting it together. I don't like painting. Which means this project will probably take longer than planned! Here it is after disassembly, but prior to the removal of some of the paint.

Disassembled Wilesco D21.

The Engineer.