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Naff
solar lights add to
the, er, atmosphere!
The
gated fence keeps little ones safe.
The gate is locked by two dead bolts through the bridge when the track
is in place
The
birdbox is made from offcuts of the trackbed.
It’s screwed to a post that was once a Christmas tree.
This
is the 12v control box. It has two 6v
lead-acid batteries. The switches give forward/reverse and 12v/6v.
18v
makes it go faster. So we use an 18v
battery pack from a power tool. The
clip is a piece of wood and two half Terry clips.
The
undergrowth is trying to take over – and it’s only been up for 6 months!
The
impressive 1/20th scale Bachmann GE 45ton diesel.
It
even comes with a nonchalant driver.
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GRAMPS’S
GARDEN RAILWAY 2
Let’s face it, I’m getting older and crawling
around on the ground to refill the boiler has lost its appeal. And there were new grandchildren who needed
to be kept away from hot boilers. And
the chief gardener wanted to pave the whole garden over!
So we built a new, safer, pond, separated from the
rest of the garden by a fence. The
railway track now runs along a wooden platform screwed to the fence. A slot in piece bridges the gate and also
provides a childproof barrier for the pond.
The pond is built from 100mm square timber
treated fence posts. These are bolted
together. The inside is then lined
with fencing strips followed by sand and then a pond liner, (if you do the
same, line it with carpet over the sand – I’ve spent too many hours removing
little stones from under the liner.)
The top is treated gravel board.
The stones are for decorative effect only. The oast house and Hogwarts were salvaged
from the old railway. Hogwarts sits on
a mound of earth that provides a ramp for the wildlife that lives in the wild
area of sticks and groundcover plants.
The gnome adds to the overall naffness we aimed
to create. The solar lights (don’t
believe what the catalogues say; fireflies are brighter) finish it off!
Whilst building the new line we discovered
something rather interesting. We
thought we were running G gauge track.
We weren’t. It was gauge 1 and
there is a heck of a difference, (like the G gauge is twice the height and
twice the price!) So it was back to
the Signal Box to swap the new pieces for gauge 1 and a Bachmann Diesel with
the refund. If you’re doing one
yourselves then buy the G gauge. The
diesel manages on the G1 track but some rolling stock I purchased had to have
its wheel rims turned down on the lathe as they were running on the sleepers
rather than the rails.
The curves are a 2m radius, which is much more
sensible than the tight curves we had previously. Overall, there are about 24m of Peco G1
track.
The new motive power needs an introduction:
The Bachmann Steamer. Why do I never learn and still buy
things off e-bay? Graham, listen: You
are buying what some workshy wally picked up from a boot fair as a
non-working toy for a fiver and then put on e-bay as a perfect condition set
and you blow £50 on it. Why not go to
the boot fair yourself? Suffice to say
that the gears were stripped in the loco, the track was not rust proof and
there was no transformer. Apart from
that the set was in perfect working order.
I managed to get a partial refund and finished up with a non working
loco and a couple of wagons for about the price of the two wagons if they
were new. Ho hum. Anyway, I’ve taken the motor and weights
out of the loco and it does a good job as a track cleaner!
The motor finished up in the Guard’s van where it
now pushes the steamer around at a very rapid pace, even on half voltage.
The Bachmann GE Diesel. Another lesson. It’s made in China, like everything else
these days. It was pricey and, just
for the record, they were selling it on e-bay at half the half price I
allegedly paid. Ho Hum. And then it stopped working. What do you do with it? Take it apart of course. A bit of engineering analysis found a
missing solder joint on one of the circuit boards. That intrigued me – it
takes real skill to miss one of those.
It does run nicely though. 8
wheel pickups and twin motors defeat the slime on the track. I power it from two 6v batteries so it can
have 6v or 12v. It will actually run
at up to 20v but the 12v is more than fast enough on our track. If we fancy a bit of fun then we hook up an
18v battery pack (a really cheap way of powering garden railways).
By the way, these things are not toys – they are
heavy and delicate.
Old Track
More From GGR: Videos! More stock.
Update on the Steamer
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The
Bachmann steamer.
Only
it doesn’t steam and the gears were stripped.
But, where there’s a will, there’s a way! Just look at the load it’s
hauling in the main picture.
You
can just see the Bachmann steamer and its impressive load hurtling down the
back straight.
This
is what happened to the motor from the Bachmann steamer. Epoxy resin to the base of the guard’s van
and a worm gear set incorporated into the axle. Then add a chain set from Maplins to give 4
wheel drive. Finally, tie an 18v
battery set from a defunct jigsaw inside the body and it will pull anything.
And
the switch?
It’s
the chimney!
The
old Mamod keeps going.
It
likes the new, more stable, track and the big radius curves
It’s
nearly 8 years old now.
As
is the old tram engine.
The
shed is also new. It is bigger than
the old one, has power and is dry!
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