Around the Garden

Storage Sidings

Our journey around the garden starts in the storage sidings in my garage.

I built 3 baseboards each just over 6' long and 2' wide to give a total length of 20'. This will provide 7 storage roads calculated to take my planned passenger trains.

The following view shows the buffer stop end of the final board in my conservatory before installation in the garage.

A fluorescent light is included behind the pelmet and a sliding perspex door provides some protection.

The buffer stops will require further description when they are complete but they are intended to cut power to the siding when the train hits it. A push button will be provided to allow reversal of the train off the stop. This is desirable because trains will be driven in and out of the sidings from the other room where the only clue to what is happening will be a CCTV camera, and a buzzer which will sound when you hit the stops.

It seems a waste to leave such a space in bare wood so I intend to scenic it as prototype storage sidings with a backscene. You can see some of my experiments on the back board. The track has been ballasted to represent ash using a fine sand and polyfilla mix.

Having installed the sidings in the garage I had to remove them again to start iinsulating the garage with Celotex. I took the opportunity to paint two of the boards with moisture resistant paint since they were beginning to go mouldy in the damp garage. I have one left to do.

You can just see the mould on the back of the first board in the picture below. Maybe with the Celotex insulation it won't prove to be necessary. Time will tell.

The next picture shows the boards back in the garage with the Celotex lining the wall at the back. I have also put Celotex on the floor with 18mm chipboard flooring on top. That is for the first 8 feet. There are another 12 feet to do.

You can just see the first board for my 3mm hidden sidings in the background on top of my O gauge as shown below before installation. There is more on my 3mm progress in my Swanage in 3mm blog.

The picture below shows the point ladder crossing the back door of the garage and disappearing through the wall into the laundry room. A CCTV camera can just be seen in the top right corner of the pelmet. This is set up so that you can check that a train has cleared the pointwork.

The 3mm board sits on top of this and the narrow ends of both 7mm and 3mm boards fit through holes in the wall into the laundry room.

Back Room

The track passes through the laundry room and into the back room as shown below. The control panel can just be seen bottom left. The class 47 is coupled to my CMX track cleaner which I bought at Telford in 2009. This has proved very effective using IPA as the fluid. I used a track rubber to clean the winter gunge in February and relied on the track cleaner ever since.

I am planning to develop the back room as described here

Into the Garden

There are several pictures in Plastic Baseboards of the track leaving the Back Room through the wall and into the garden.

This is an out of date track plan and description. It does not include the extension of the relief line and its loop around the down platform at the station nor does it include the storage sidings in the garage shown above. I also have plans for a loco depot in front of the 3 sidings in the back room. However it is sufficient to put our trip around the garden into context. We will continue in a clockwise, down, direction.

Stock is stored on three hidden sidings at a low level in the railway room, under the 3mm model of Swanage. This proceeds into the garden through a hole in the wall. The garden is about 50' square. The main line is a double track circuit with a through station at the bottom of the garden and storage loops at the side. A third, relief, track starts from the station running clockwise to the first leg of the triangular junction. In effect that gives me two single track branches, and a slow line so that trains can overtake.

Triangular Junction

These pictures show the triangular junction before the plastic baseboards were installed. More recent pictures can be seen here Plastic Baseboards and here Triangular Junction.

The gaps in the ballast in the first view, taken in 2006, show the bell wire which is layed along each side of the track. It is soldered to each separate track length by bending into a U shape so that it remains continuous. Weights were used at intervals to hold the wire in position while the ballast sets. The second view shows the gaps filled in and the retaining wall which I have just completed.

The beginning of the bridge over the patio is just visible in the bottom right hand corner. The arch is based on Brunel's Thames Bridge at Maidenhead.

Loops

These are the Loops looking down the left hand side of the garden with the junction behind us.

The left hand track is the start of the down relief and storage loop. The kick back on the crossover will feed a three road goods marshalling yard.

Then we have the down and up main lines and then the end of the up storage loop. The loops will continue round the bend.

The crossovers before the bend allow trains to be split and reformed for handling the Royal Wessex and other expresses.

The Loops Control Panel can just be seen in front of the crossovers. The brick and slab seat is the operating position.

(The baseboard at the start of the curve was refurbished this time last year when I found some rot.

It was featured in my blog of.)

My loops control panel is described here: http://www.jswalker.demon.co.uk/7mm/7mmcontrolpanels.htm

Notice that originally I mounted it on a shelf over the tracks. However the track under the shelf suffered more than elsewhere from garden gunge on the top of the rails. I think this may be because it was protected from the rain and so didn't get washed regularly.

I have dismantled the shelf and the control panel is now mounted on the side of the baseboard as shown below using aluminium angle and flats.

Bournemouth

This is the view from round the bend in the previous pictures. You probably need to click on it to enlarge it to see the detail described below.

The track to the right is the down relief which includes a loop through the station.

In the middle of the picture the loops reduce to two tracks and then open up into four again through the station, as at Bournemouth Central. I am planning a bridge over the loop points so that the loops behind will not seem so obvious from the station, and also to replicate Bournemouth Central.

The track from the point to the left will be a carriage siding.

The two platforms will start from the end of the point into the carriage siding. I need a few more nice days to reach the down relief at the opposite end of the station as shown a year ago in my blog, here:

http://ogaugeinthegarden.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/straight-ahead.html.Here is an old plan and description of the station.

This is the site for the station showing the up main platform road and facing the west. The nearest full turnout marks the start of the loop and the next turnout will lead into a carriage siding. The nearer half of the up platform will be signalled for running in both directions so that trains can arrive from and depart to the west.

The station plan draws on Bournemouth Central for inspiration. As drawn above, Up to London is to the left and Down to the West is to the right. There will be two platforms, one each side of the four tracks. They will be long enough for 11 coach trains.

An overbridge is planned at the left end of the station to hide the points which mark the start of "hidden sidings". The siding on the up side is for carriage storage. The idea is that GWR trains arrive from the West in the up platform. They are berthed in this siding and then depart westwards from the up platform, using the two crossovers to reach the down side.

Down SR trains arrive at the down platform where they can be split. An 11 coach train would be split into 6 coaches for Bournemouth and 5 for Swanage and Weymouth, as used to happen at Bournemouth Central. The 2 trains continue around the down main. Later the 5 coach train splits again having 2 coaches removed for Swanage, as used to happen at Wareham. The remaining 3 coaches proceed westwards on the down main. Then the pushpull reverses on to the through coaches and proceeds up the relief line and on to the branch.

In the Up direction the pushpull arrives at the west end of the up platform with through coaches attached. The through coaches are detached and the pushpull uses the crossovers to reach the down side. The 3 coach train arrives at the east end of the Up platform. The train reverses to attach the through coaches and continues its journey.

Later the 6 coach train arrives at the west end of the Up platform. Its engine runs round ready to attach the coaches to the rear of the 5 coach train which uses the crossover to arrive at the east end of the up platform. The 5 coaches are added and the engine changed.

I am planning to use an MOK rebuilt Merchant Navy for the London end of the journey and unrebuilt (Finney) and rebuilt (David Andrews) West Countries for the West. An engine shed is assumed at the up end of the station. In fact engines will proceed through the hidden sidings and use the triangle to turn. This will give lots of good excuses to use the whistle in the DCC sound decoders!

Bournemouth, West end

After spending most of 2011 in the conservatory for track building my corner board is now back in the garden. The up line is connected to give me circular running again. Work on this corner board is described at C&L Track.

As you can see below, there is still some track to be built. Since the track is laid on Templot paper templates I need good weather for this activity. While work is in progress I will keep it covered to protect it from the elements.

The class 33 is my latest diesel from Heljan. It is sitting on the up platform line. This is part of the operational circuit. As was at Bournemouth Central you can see the up through road diverging just behind the loco.

Next to the up through road is the down through road and then the down platform road.

Next to the down main is the down relief line. A crossover allows running from down platform to down relief. The down relief runs round the back of the down platform. You can see the point to the middle left of the picture which is the end of a loop on that line. Down trains for the branch at the triangular junction must take the relief line from this end of the station.

I have installed a LokSound XL 3.5 decoder from Howes in my class 33.

Here are some YouTube videos:

My David Andrews U fitted with LokSound 3.5 decoder from South West Digital on goods. Much to do! See also Decoders and Sound

Heljan class 47 fitted with LokSound 3.5 XL from South West Digital on Golden Age Models Pullmans. See Class 47

... and back

This just about completes the circuit for now.

This view shows the baseboards for the main circuit with a station at the top (that is the bottom of the garden). So far the inner circuit, which will be the up main, has been laid together with the sidings in the house and one side of the triangular junction to the up main. I had hoped to complete the triangular junction in 2005 so that I can run out and back as well as in a circle but that is beginning to look like a bit too much of a challenge.

This view shows the junction. Eventually there will be 3 tracks across the lawn - up main, down main and down relief.

This is where the branch line actually diverges, to the left, from the main line around the triangle and into the house. The train is on the up main and belongs to my Dad.

I don't have much in the way of finished stock, yet!