Whats going on?

 There hasnt been much progress to the railway mainly due to problems with the house that saw us in a hotel for over a month missing the nice weather when I could have worked on the garden and the new line. 

I have started work on some small railways using the boards from the large portable I was going to build. I have decided to use each baseboard to make a smaller line but make them linkable so I can have as small or as large a line as I want.

Module no 1, a garden line.

The first module will be a garden line with a green house and a shed and will feature the sort of clutter you would expect to find in such a location.

The track has had a coat of red oxide and will get rust and dirt added and cat litter ballast before the scenery in added.

If you look at the layout you will see the short sidings at either end. The buffer stops are not fixed down so these can be used to link the modules and will, eventually, create a complete oval. I will also make a couple of modules with return loops so I can be flexible with the layout.

New work area

 As part of the railways rebuild and me getting back into my train building again I have recently built a new workstation which I plan on putting to good use to build the large cache of kits that I have. 

I have lots to do both on the railway and on my cosplay projects but now I do have the room, at least once the last few bits have been tidied away.

Catch up

 So my plans to do more on the railway have been scuppered by, of all things, a new grandson.

I am now well and truly recovered from my operation but spending time with my Grandson Oakley as well as my Daughters wedding in Italy preceded by my new Son-in-Laws stag do in Prague has restricted my time for railway modelling. 

One decision I have made is to remove the current railway and replace it with an elevated one. There are 2 reasons for this, 1 is that the garden had got out of hand and was looking scruffy and 2 is that my health problems showed that a ground level line needs a level of fitness that, whilst I currently have it, might limit me in the future.

I will update the site in the next few days to reflect projects and progress. 

Getting back into it.

 The past couple of months have seen very little being done in terms of the garden railway. The garden itself is very untidy and I haven't been able to get any modelling done mainly down to my recovery from my recent operation and, in the last 2 weeks, the mess and upheaval associated with a bathroom being turned into a wet room. The work is now done and the boxes I had to take down from the loft have been returned to their storage. 

This means I can now get at my workbench again so I will get on with the winter jobs of mending, building and planning plus the portable layout will get more work with track going down so I can work on the baseboards.

All Change

 Several things have been happening with the railway the first being that I have built a set of portable boards to build a garden railway on tour. Track is now being lifted from the garden ready for its rebuild later in the Autumn and then Spring. 

The baseboards assembled in the garden. No joints between boards are done up tight as the garden is very uneven and I couldnt get it flat.

The boards had a coat of matt green.

The boards were used at the North Weald and District Miniature Railway's Model Fest but had an oval of 45mm gauge track on so a friend could run his stock. This was down to the fact that I had my gall bladder removed and they had to open me up so I was unable to do very much. Hopefully in a week or so I will be able to get track down and trains running.

As sitting and leaning forward has been painful for me recently I have not been able to use my down time to get kits built however I can now do so for short periods so I will get on with it and get some videos made of the construction.

I did get trains running at the Model Fest using my test track. Whilst it is not the best to display with I did get things running and it attracted lots of kids who loved it when Wallace and Gromit went for a run.

Dan Foards gauge 1 trains doing their thing

The test track with W&G featuring.

Rain, rain and more rain!

 I had hoped to get the spring video on the railway recorded and published by now but a combination of health problems and the horrible weather has put that on hold. 

The garden desperately needs attention as the grass is growing fast due to the weather and the plants surrounding the railway are overgrowing it everywhere.

I am getting on with the kits I have been given for Christmas and my Birthday and I will put a post up about them once they are complete.

Short update

 I haven't made progress on any projects at present as my gall bladder has been playing me up again although I have got hold of some plastic drain pipe for free that will be used for some of the support posts for the railway when I get going with the rebuild.

I have a few days off over Easter and I hope to get some progress on projects and give some of my locos a charge up and run on the new test track.