The Garden Railway

 My first 'proper' model railway. Prior to this my last layout had been dismantled some time around 2007, the usual large piece of board (Probably somewhere in the region of 5x4ft) with a classic OO circle of track and several sidings and a few odd buildings positioned about the place. It was fun, there's no denying that, but I'd decided quite early on that when I found the time to take up modelling again I was going to try a fully scenic layout.

Fast forward to 2020, and I'm sure I don't need to explain why I suddenly found myself with time on my hands. Many things had changed, I'd started accumulating some OO9 after being introduced to the scale by my dad, and I'd also discovered the fantastic Small Layout Scrapbook by the late Carl Arendt, cementing the idea that a new layout needn't take up a vast amount or increasingly valuable room space, and that I should also probably base a new layout on the tried and tested 'inglenook' method.

The only problem was a theme, I just couldn't think of one that would appeal to me.

Then one day whilst browsing through the Micro Layouts Facebook group I came across Adrian Full's 'Garden Railway' layout. Incredibly simple: OO gauge, 16x6", modelled to look like a typical UK back garden in the suburbs, with a Wickham Trolley running up and down the lawn on a single piece of track in the style of a BBC News article published at the time.

Measuring out the dimensions on a piece of 3mm ply, I found that if using the small Minitrains style wagons a OO9 inglenook could fit in the same space. Just!

Testing the track after laying, at the time I only had three of the Minitrains wagons...

Fast Forward to 2022, when an entire linesworth of wagons arrived via the 009 Society!

Due to the circumstances surrounding the time the layout was built, it had to be constructed from items and kits that were to hand. Luckily I had a wills Garden Accessories kit in the stash to provide many of the stereotypical structures, a Wills Domestic Garage found employment in a slightly kit-bashed way as an engine shed, whilst the main house and garden walls were a cut down Low Relief Terrace House Back kit from Scalescenes.

A rooftop view of the garden. The influence of Sir Arthur Heywood's railways shows.

A view looking back towards the house end.

They say a layout is never finished, and this is certainly no exception. You'll notice there's a distinct lack of figures, and the paper and card garden walls need replacing as the colours started to run during the scenic stage. Even in this unfinshed state though, it's still very enjoyable to take a laid back half hour shunting a few wagons into place. The layout also has another unexpected use, it spends quite a bit of time as an unintentional 'photo plank' for any new rolling stock!

Lastly, 'The Garden Railway' will always be important to me as it's where I gained my first experience at having a model railway article published. The layout appeared in Issue 5 of the Micro Model Railway Dispatch - An excellent read for those wanting more influence and ideas for tiny model railways!

The Beginnings of a Station

Work progresses on more buildings for the embryonic welsh 009 micro layout. This time round sees me part way through constructing a station building, but more importantly, I've remembered to take a photograph part way through the build. Normally I'm so engrossed in my modelling once I get going that by the time I've remembered, the model is nearly finished!

It doesn't look much at the moment, but I'm very pleased with how this is progressing.

I'd wanted a old 'Talyllyn'-esque station building, but couldn't quite decide on which of the two distinct types (Three if you include the original brick building at Wharf) to model, the choices either being the classic slate building at Dolgoch, or the wooden variant seen at Pendre. Luckily there's a compromise.

Abergynolwyn station originally started out as a wooden example, and looking at a photograph dated 1936 in David Potter's "The Talyllyn Railway" shows that just after this time the original was demolished and replaced with a similar slate structure. Unlike the other slate stations on the line though, the platform side seems to have been built totally open, with a small office being created by the use of wooden screens. Another photo in the same book offers a good view of this in the 1950s in use as an early refreshment room.

Starting out using the Chris Ford book mentioned last week as a guide to the main structure, the wooden screens were created from 40thou plasticard, scribed at 2mm intervals vertically to simulate planking. The office door and ticket office window were then cut out and 20x40thou plastic strip used to create the lintels, sill and the strapping on the doors, along with a rough representation of a door handle and lock.

Next begins the painting stage.

A quick try for size on the layout next to a Bachmann Skarloey/Talyllyn coach.

A Small Office

 

Another building for the 009 project. A small office kit-bashed from the Wills Coal Office kit. Occasionally I have a 'happy accident' moment when putting kits together, and this features one of my favourites: The light grey streak on the windowsill occurred when I gave the building a wash to bring out to the mortar courses. Unnoticed and left to dry, it was only later on I spotted it looked remarkably like a broken piece of slate!

This project wouldn't have been possible without the ever invaluable "Modelling the Welsh Narrow Gauge Railways" by Chris Ford. A highly recommended book from me, along with the earlier "Modelling Narrow Gauge Railways in Small Spaces". Both books help me massively at getting back into modelling again, and more importantly making it fun again.

Also check out Chris's blog. Filled with even more anecdotes and modelling.

Beginings - And A Grotty Hut

Unfortunately I'm one of those modellers who hardly documents their building. Not for any particular reason other than becoming so engrossed in the task at hand that I simply forget and it's something I want to change, mainly so that when asked I can direct people to a source. I'm also fairly lacking in my writing skills, so this blog is an attempt to try and kill two birds with one stone: Improving my modelling documentation and my writing at the same time.

Hopefully.

So, here goes:

One again I find myself in the midst of creating a small 009 layout. This time however I'm taking the approach of making some of the more generic structures first to help with planning. There is of course the danger of spending so much time creating a model that won't fit comfortably on the finished layout, but in this case it's certainly a building that would fit in almost any setting I could plan to model: One of the Grotty Huts from the Wills Kits range by Peco.

Nothing particularly taxing build wise, the main structure was assembled as per the kit intentions, the minor alteration to the parts being notching the underside of the top and bottom edges of the corrugated iron roof the make the part look thinner than it actually is. 

A few minor additions have been added to try and help distinguish it from the countless others that have appeared on many layouts. Firstly, the small bolt and padlock on the door, simply a piece of 20x10thou plastic strip for the bolt, with a small square of 20x40thou strip for the padlock. It's a tiny detail, but one that looks right.

On the rear side a strip of guttering has been added and due to the sloping nature of the roof probably aiding in water collection, a small water butt was created from odds and ends in the spares box. The barrel was left over from a Wills Garden Conservatory, a small hole was drilled in to the base to a piece of 0.5mm for a tap with a small square of 20x10thou again for the handle. The completed butt sits on a stack of four pieces of 60thou square strip to give it the necessary height to fill a small bucket sat on the floor.

Hut complete, onwards to the next build.