A Garden Railway Pipedream: the odyssey continues

Stoke5D

Western Thunderer
Richard

Sorry if I've missed this but did you mention a spec. and supplier for the Cable Tray? Having looked at the various options for my garden I think your solution will be best for most of the areas away from the house and outbuildings.

Andrew
 
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Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Richard

Sorry if I've missed this but did you mention a spec. and supplier for the Cable Tray? Having looked at the various options for my garden I think your solution will be best for most of the areas away from the house and outbuildings.

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

My cable trays came from DP Building Systems. 3 metres long, 225mm wide, medium duty.

Unistrut Medium Duty Cable Tray 225MM X3M Pre-Galvanised (TUMLT225/10PG) Medium Duty Cable tray comes in different heights : 24, 48, 72, 96 mm Cable tray comes in different heights : 24, 48, 72, 96 mm

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi,

We've still been working one day a week on the garden railway, notwithstanding the preparations for Telford. I haven't taken photos after every session, but have after yesterday's efforts.


We have continued round the almost 250 degree curve round the left hand flower bed, part of which is at ground level - I shall need to build a bridge of some sort to take the mower over and generally give access - and worked our way round to the problem we knew we would have....

P1010547a.jpg

P1010549a.jpg

P1010551a.jpg

The last 2 boards have just been placed in position as we know we will need to remove them for access tomorrow.

The problem is the raised beds. We hoped we would either a) be above them, or b) just be inside them. In truth we expected to hit them, and are only about 6 '' out from where the original survey placed the boards. After discussion with the garden management committee (of 1:) ), it has been established that we can leave the bottom poles in situ, and then cut the interfering parts of the 2 top poles off. We have to finish the resultant triangle off with one of the cut-off sections so it looks nice. All sounds fine......It's not, as bolted on the inside, and sure to be in the way, are brackets holding the upper and lower poles together and staking them to the ground. So a lot of work ahead tomorrow:)

Richard
 
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unklian

Western Thunderer
Excellent stuff. I cant help thinking it looks like some sort of slow exposure photography of a small and brightly lit UFO zipping around your garden ,
 

3 LINK

Western Thunderer
Whilst I take in the wonders of the newly laid track bed, my wife was more concerned about what your neighbours think !

I think there is some truth in that " Venus and Mars " saying .

Martyn.
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi Martyn,

The railway is in the bottom half of the garden - very little is visible for either neighbour. It does look very stark at the moment but it will all pull together when the boards are painted and track is on. I ordered a couple of nice little garden bridges yesterday so we can span the tracks at ground level.

It looks to be a sunny if cool day today so we should make good progress, maybe even get as far as the one end of the viaduct.

Richard
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
The problem is the raised beds. We hoped we would either a) be above them, or b) just be inside them. In truth we expected to hit them, and are only about 6 '' out from where the original survey placed the boards. After discussion with the garden management committee (of 1:) ), it has been established that we can leave the bottom poles in situ, and then cut the interfering parts of the 2 top poles off. We have to finish the resultant triangle off with one of the cut-off sections so it looks nice. All sounds fine......It's not, as bolted on the inside, and sure to be in the way, are brackets holding the upper and lower poles together and staking them to the ground. So a lot of work ahead tomorrow:)

Just take Buster Keaton's approach to track laying.
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi,

It was quite a hard day, but all went well with the landscape design adjustments, and by mid-afternoon, we had finished:

P1010553a.jpg

P1010555a.jpg

and by close of play, normal service had been resumed.

P1010556a.jpg

Mind you, it would have helped if Clive had remembered today was Saturday.....or was that a ploy to miss the heavy labour:)

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi,

We had a dodge the showers day yesterday. The only hot and sunny period coincided with Roger's arrival - I draw no conclusions......

We did manage to progress the top boards through the raised bed, and I think we have one more post and board to complete this section before we get to the viaduct.

P1010557a.jpg

P1010558a.jpg

Not much clearance following the rebuilding of the top poles on the raised bed:)

P1010560a.jpg

You can see the loop round the second bed in the distance. The intention is that the viaduct is on a very slight curve and will join up with boards on the outside of the existing loop before working it's way up the fence to join the loop round the ash tree giving us a continuous run.

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hello,

We are still taking advantage of the good weather to progress the infrastructure of the line.

We have got as far as the start of the viaduct the one end.

P1010609a.jpg

This break point also means that we can start to lay some track working backwards from this point. I still have to carve the stone in relief on the moulds for the viaduct, so it's probably unlikely that the casting will be done this year.

We have also started working back laying the top boards on the curve towards the ash tree.

P1010605a.jpg

The garden had an unused and rampant out-of control bed by the fence at the far end, and this has been cleared to give an area for benches, steam up and stock storage.

P1010607a.jpg

The blackthorn needs to go too, but the chainsaw was u/s when the bed was cleared and it will be removed in the next couple of weeks. the pegs were just approximately placed to give me an idea of how many more scaffold poles I need to order. We've used more than originally anticipated due to the reduced centres between them to tie in with the backer-boards size, and we used poles all the way round whereas the original plan called for a couple of concrete base areas.

P1010608a.jpg

Looking up the garden, the near wooden stakes and the 2 high poles mark the curve from the end of the viaduct and up the fence, to join eventually with the ash tree return curve, while the stakes continuing down the fence show the rough line to the steam up bay and sidings.

And from the top of the garden, the curve to the viaduct and the cleared area.

P1010606a.jpg

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
It's Thursday.....must be update time on the outside line:)

We were lucky again with the weather yesterday, even if it was jackets and jumpers temperature. We split into two groups, one on baseboards, and the other on posts and jacks. We worked out that we had gone slightly wrong using the template rather than the radius rod towards the ash, so had to backtrack a little bit and rework 3 boards. We started off by properly locating the section at the ash tree and worked backwards towards the last board we were happy with. In fact the radius is still over 10ft so that's OK. We are still a little close to the root, so we will trim it back slightly on Saturday, and probably raise the whole layout by a couple of cm to give us a bit more wriggle room.

P1010642a.jpg

P1010641a.jpg

The bridge will be raised on a base to give height clearance. It's light enough to move, but wide enough to take the mower and garden wheely bin.

On to the post and jack party (bit like vicars and tarts, but for sad old train enthusiasts gits), we have now gone round the curve as far as the last post before the viaduct - a pretty significant moment.

P1010645a.jpg

Looking backwards, you can see the curve up the garden - apart from the steam up/stock area, there will be no straight lines.

P1010644a.jpg

P1010643a.jpg

From beyond the ash tree, you can see pretty much the whole of the layout. The steam up/storage area is from pointwork off the main line bottom right.

P1010646a.jpg
We have another day in the garden Saturday - forecast is quite good - and are going to put down a few pieces of track to have a play. I hope Tim will have sound chipped my BR78 by then so we can test it out:)

Cheers.

Richard
 
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