HDSmith's Garden Railway Career

[HDSmith]

I did actually 'make things' in the model railway world, and not so very long ago. My garden railway career began with my retirement and ended in around 2023; it was welcome opportunity to revive old skills, learn new ones and discover, especially towards the end, what had provided the most enjoyment. This is another retrospective with an evident conclusion. I hope it will prove of some interest.

The factors that led to the building of my garden railway were:

• Making a 4mm-scale model of a military depot inspired by RE Long Marston, housed at one end of our house extension on L-shaped baseboards and involving, like the prototype, an awful lot of shunting
• a moderately-sized garden, unused by our two children who were then away at university
• Retirement, and a gift voucher for a model shop
• A glossy American book of very extensive 'garden' railways
• The discovery of Andrew Steel's outstanding garden railway showroom and store on the edge of nearby Cheltenham

I first undertook a chain-and-tape survey of our rear garden. This was actually a steel tape-and tape survey to be exact, but using a very appropriate purchase from an auction in Rugby:


I have tried, and failed, to discover the identity of the LNER staff member who once owned this tape: it would be good to know of them. The plotted results of the survey are shown below.


The decision was taken at an early stage to avoid the known pitfalls of a system laid out at ground level (one of which is the impact of the human ageing process) and to use LGB track geometry in the main. Straight sections and transition curves would use Peco G45 flexible track and its associated specialist conversion joiners. The railway would be operated by a single LGB analogue controller and isolation switches, and the plan that seemed at the time to lend itself best to the garden's configuration was an out-and-back arrangement via a balloon loop. Running round and shunting would be concentrated in a station area close to the house, and where electrical switching, lighting control and distribution of the 16vAC supplies could be centred.

The plan above was given to the local fencing contractor who installed the supporting structure for the line while I was recovering from surgery. This was the first such project that he had undertaken and the finished work was a credit to him. Standard square fence posts were cut to length, concreted in place as per the plan, and quality decking planks were screwed to the uprights to create the trackbed. Throughout its operating life, nothing warped or subsided.


The station area next to the house was completed first and became the contractor's workplace. Three decking boards were used here to create the space for a platform, run-round loop, spur siding and electric switch housing, and these were supported on wooden tee pieces as can be seen.


This is the completed balloon loop beneath the Japanese Maple tree. I added fillet pieces on the inside of the curve to accommodate slight overlaps of the LGB sectional track.


While the decking planks are precisely the right width for the 45mm gauge track components, they do not permit the addition of lineside equipment or features and at several locations spare decking was used to enable the installation, as seen above, of LGB switch motors. The motor shown was subsequently fitted with an accessory switch to operate a warning light, adding to the runs of wiring and mini-distribution boxes fitted to the edge and underside of the decking. Heavy-gauge wiring was used throughout and all connections thoroughly waterproofed. A Halt was also located in the vee of the balloon loop entry/exit and required a sheet of ply adding to the structure.


This is Sandplace Halt in the vee of the balloon loop as described above, and the view sums up for me the setting and work to create my garden line. The Fixed Distant signal is scratchbuilt from plastic tubing, thick plastic card and oddments and its function was to remind me to stop all trains at this location, remotely change the switch behind them, and reset the controller to enable the LGB automatic polarity reverser to operate on the return loop. Fortunately, I believe the signal may be prototypically correct as well.

Sandplace Halt shelter is a scale (13mm:1 foot) model of the actual platform hut built by the Liskeard and Looe Railway at Sandplace. It was constructed from thin ply and clad with coffee stirrers collected for me from numerous coffee shops by my daughter and her fiance. The lineside hut is assembled from spare components and sheets of embossed plastic supplied by a dolls' house manufacturer who had diversifed into garden railway building production. The derrick crane in the distant granite works is scratchbuilt and the granite 'blocks' were recovered one summer holiday from the lifted sidings on the Princetown Branch at Swelltor Quarry.

The next posting will feature more buildings and some of the bespoke rolling stock used on the line.

 

[HDSmith]

Taking a step back from the opening post, this is a short account of how the best intentions for a garden railway can be derailed by a host of practicalities.

The high cost and available range of garden railway motive power made it apparent at an early stage- prior to laying the trackbed - that the concept of a Westcountry light railway in my garden might have to be tempered by reality. However, I persisted in the construction of the most accurate models of which I was capable of prototypes with a personal connection, at the scale of 13mm: 1 foot.


I did at least realise that including a scale model of the Liskeard and Caradon/Liskeard and Looe Railway engine sheds at Moorswater was an impossibility and I settled on reproducing the building mis-captioned in Mitchell and Smith's Branch Line to Looe as a LCR structure at the Cheesewring. It isn't, as no such building was erected and the surrounding landscape in the picture includes a river estuary. However, here it is in the guise of an engine shed, complete with a model of the firebox wrapper from the LCR's Gilkes Wilson 0-6-0T Caradon, which for many years served as the WC at Moorswater sheds, where it was placed over a feeder to the East Looe River. The shed is constructed on a former, cut from from old display panels clad in embossed plastic card and sheet. The WC is similarly made and used a quantity of plastic rivets to reproduce the original feature I photographed on site in 1964,

The model could not be used on the completed trackbed and was scrapped. The firebox WC was retained.


This is a model of a relatively small prototype- the Princetown Railway dray horse stable of 1883, and the sole surviving structure on the Princetown station site today, unless one includes the three GWR staff houses off Station Road. The slate coverings on the walls and roof were strips of scored card and the rendered finish was replicated by sheets of coarse sandpaper. The louvred gable ends on the actual building ventilated the hayloft, and I 'restored' the neat brick enclosure for the muck heap.

Even a small stable building creates a sizeable footprint at 13mm:1 foot scale and this model could also not be accommodated on the garden line. How well it would have fared in the outdoor setting is a moot point.


I hankered after a scale model of a Cornish engine house and chimney as a nod to the landscape of my youth and set about building one of the surviving 80-foot stack of Kithill Great Consols. The chimney is a landmark on the summit of Kit Hill, visible for miles around the old mining and market town of Callington in East Cornwall. Built in 1858 to exhaust the beam engine that drained the 100-fathom main shaft of the mine, the chimney has for years been festooned with telecoms aerials. My model was constructed ca 2008 from a length of plastic drain pipe and a plywood base in the form of a cube with two wide diameter holes top and bottom to hold the pipe upright. The killas masonry of the chimney was represented by scoring huge amounts of DAS modelling clay, and the faced and rendered base was created from plastic card glued to the plywood. The whole structure was then sprayed with grey primer. My efforts to reproduce the many shades of the killas were not successful, probably due in part to the fact that you simply cannot merely repeat 4mm-scale weathering and colouring techniques at this scale.

It is not difficult to appreciate just how huge a model of the accompanying (and demolished) engine house would have been. At this point, I gave up attempting to recreate a landscape and focussed instead on small features that might tell the same story.


A 2010 view of the station area shortly after tracklaying was completed. The signal box is a scale model of the little-known, and only, Liskeard and Caradon Railway box at Moorswater. The original was built in 1879 when the LCR became responsible for operating passenger services on the LIskeard and Looe Union Canal line, and the BoT Inspectorate became interested in the LCR's practices. Occasional passenger excursions also operated N of the box on the line to Darite and Minions, and in the late 1880s work began (and ended) on extending the line with through passenger services further N across Bodmin Moor to the LSWR at Launceston. The Moorswater box became redundant in 1901 with the opening of the Coombe Junction-Liskeard line and it was removed sometime between 1915 and 1933. Its site lies directly below the E end of Moorswater Viaduct.

My model featured a scratchbuilt interior with lever frame, furniture and lighting, and was constructed to scale from stripwood, embossed plastic sheet and building components including doors and windows. I used every known photo of the box, and scaled up my outline drawing from standard dimensions of key features. The model was stored inside when not required and was eventually presented to Liskeard Museum.


A scene below Moorswater box that tells the story of the garden railway in many senses.

The LC gate is one of a pair here built from stripwood, lengths of tin can, Peco track pins, solder tags and plastic card, and scaled up from a detailed 4mm-scale plan published by Railway Modeller in the early 1960s of a prototype LSWR installation in Dorset. I am happy to say that the model pair resisted the Midlands weather well.

The definitely non-prototype boxcar is a Bachmann CKD kit, with added detail, and primed and sprayed with Halfords rattle can paints. Ivor Dewdney's Pasties were part of the childhood of Mrs HDSmith and me and we felt that we should mark this is an appropriate way. Dewdneys have been supplying fresh baked pasties to the people of Plymouth since 1935 and enjoying one of their products while viewing the Sound from the Hoe is a fact of life in the City. You can find out more here Ivor Dewdney® Pasties – Voted Plymouth's Best Pasty – Voted Plymouth's Best Pasty

With the full support of NIck Abbott, the MD of Dewdneys and the grandson of Ivor Dewdney, the founder of the company, permission was granted to use the firm's branding and indeed Nick provided the necessary artwork. This material was transforned into bespoke waterslide transfers by Chris Moxham of Bath and the result is seen here. Two boxcars were produced by me, one of which I am proud to say rests with Nick Abbott. The one shown in the photograph is on display on the bookshelves behind me as I type this.

More rolling stock and lineside views will appear in the next posting.