Garden Railway
- Thread starter sovietspybob
- Start date
Epic.
My grandad built a steam powered mini train from scratch when he was younger. I seem to remember he fabricated pretty much everything bar a few components like valves. He was going to build a track in the garden but I don’t think he did in the end and ended up selling it on.
My grandad built a steam powered mini train from scratch when he was younger. I seem to remember he fabricated pretty much everything bar a few components like valves. He was going to build a track in the garden but I don’t think he did in the end and ended up selling it on.
Soldato
nice
we had one near us guy had it right around the garden
i loved seeing it everytime went past there
guess he sold the house as sadly its all been removed now
we had one near us guy had it right around the garden
i loved seeing it everytime went past there
guess he sold the house as sadly its all been removed now
Soldato
This is brilliant! This thread needs to start building up some steam!
Thanks for the responses guys i really didn't think anyone would care 
To add a bit more this is the plan i have in my head, red will be the first bits i'll do, then the blue at some point and lime green would be a nice to have but would require a lot more work so will probably never happen. I have about 180m of 20x10 steel bar which will make 90m of track which will do all the stuff in red, got a load of assorted other steel delivered at the same time for other projects.
The garden is quite steep going from the top where the drive is down to the right hand side as you look at the map, it drops maybe 2.5-3 metres so the gradient will be quite steep which i'm a bit worried about as it'll have a short bit of about 1 in 15 which is extremely steep for a railway but i can't think of any way to lessen it without doing some major civil works. I did some tests the other day by packing some wood under a bit of track and found the engine with 1 wagon full of old car batteries would go up a 1 in 10 slope, as i only have brakes on the engine itself when you get off it did start to slide down the rails. Seemingly a large part of its tractive effort relies on the drivers weight as it weighs about 70-80kg on its own so the drive almost doubles the weight.
Also made a few more fishplates which is how i'm joining the pieces of rail together, there's lots of schools of thought on the best way to do this but this is my solution. They're made out of 20x3mm flat bar with 6mm holes drilled and i'm using M5 bolts with nyloc nuts done up fairly loosely so there's some movement for expansion.
And this is how it looks when fitted
As for other future plans, i need to build some more wagons. I'm not 100% on what i want yet so i'll probably just make it up as i go along, the most expensive bit is the wheels as there just isn't anywhere that is cheap but they are pretty chunky solid bits of steel so they probably can't be made any cheaper, you're looking at around £90-100 ish for a set of 4 wheels then another £30-40 for some bright bar for the axles and bearing & holders, the rest i can knock up out of stuff i have in the garage bar maybe a few sheets of ply or some wooden planks.
Then i'd love to build another loco from scratch myself this time, i really want something with a vintage engine in it like a Lister D as they just sound right to me. My dad has a Ruston & Hornsby PB stationary engine in his garage which he may donate if we can figure out how to mount it as they're longitudinal so might be a bit of a challenge on small track, plus figuring out how to get drive to the wheels in both directions is an interesting problem.
Then maybe a steam engine if i ever win any money as they're bonkers money, you could get a very nice 2nd hand car for the price of a fairly entry level steam engine in this size!
And yeah if any of you are ever on sunny Anglesey when all this nonsense is over you can have a ride
To add a bit more this is the plan i have in my head, red will be the first bits i'll do, then the blue at some point and lime green would be a nice to have but would require a lot more work so will probably never happen. I have about 180m of 20x10 steel bar which will make 90m of track which will do all the stuff in red, got a load of assorted other steel delivered at the same time for other projects.
The garden is quite steep going from the top where the drive is down to the right hand side as you look at the map, it drops maybe 2.5-3 metres so the gradient will be quite steep which i'm a bit worried about as it'll have a short bit of about 1 in 15 which is extremely steep for a railway but i can't think of any way to lessen it without doing some major civil works. I did some tests the other day by packing some wood under a bit of track and found the engine with 1 wagon full of old car batteries would go up a 1 in 10 slope, as i only have brakes on the engine itself when you get off it did start to slide down the rails. Seemingly a large part of its tractive effort relies on the drivers weight as it weighs about 70-80kg on its own so the drive almost doubles the weight.
Also made a few more fishplates which is how i'm joining the pieces of rail together, there's lots of schools of thought on the best way to do this but this is my solution. They're made out of 20x3mm flat bar with 6mm holes drilled and i'm using M5 bolts with nyloc nuts done up fairly loosely so there's some movement for expansion.
And this is how it looks when fitted
As for other future plans, i need to build some more wagons. I'm not 100% on what i want yet so i'll probably just make it up as i go along, the most expensive bit is the wheels as there just isn't anywhere that is cheap but they are pretty chunky solid bits of steel so they probably can't be made any cheaper, you're looking at around £90-100 ish for a set of 4 wheels then another £30-40 for some bright bar for the axles and bearing & holders, the rest i can knock up out of stuff i have in the garage bar maybe a few sheets of ply or some wooden planks.
Then i'd love to build another loco from scratch myself this time, i really want something with a vintage engine in it like a Lister D as they just sound right to me. My dad has a Ruston & Hornsby PB stationary engine in his garage which he may donate if we can figure out how to mount it as they're longitudinal so might be a bit of a challenge on small track, plus figuring out how to get drive to the wheels in both directions is an interesting problem.
Then maybe a steam engine if i ever win any money as they're bonkers money, you could get a very nice 2nd hand car for the price of a fairly entry level steam engine in this size!
And yeah if any of you are ever on sunny Anglesey when all this nonsense is over you can have a ride
Soldato
I'm loco over your reply and would feel like a real shunt if I didn't congratulate the OP on his railway children. He's created the daddy, my daddy of all projects.
Man of Honour
When it comes to locomotives braking is all about the weight of the loco. When the early diesels and electrics started replacing steam loco's on unfitted freight trains (only the engine did the braking on most) there were quite a few instances of runaway trains as the diesels were so much lighter than the steam loco's they replaced they lacked the brake force. To counter this they came up with the idea of diesel brake tenders. These were mostly made from old steam locomotive tenders or old carriage chassis and filled with ballast. For further information see here and here.
Simplex used a lot of Lister Diesels in their little loco's.
Simplex used a lot of Lister Diesels in their little loco's.
Soldato
Don
Awesome!
That's interesting i'd actually never come across them!
I'm undecided what to do about brakes, i know i probably should fit a vacuum pump to the engine and have a couple of vacuum braked wagons but that gets expensive fast but would future proof me if i ever did get a steam engine.
Other option is to just have manual brakes fitted which can be pegged down when i'm going down the steep section which would be a lot more cost effective but means stopping at the top each time. Which in a way i wouldn't mind as having the line be a bit more of a challenge to operate would keep things interesting.
Permabanned
Will you be tempted to set some lap times, then try to beat them? 
Very impressive, sure beats a plastic water fountain as a garden feature. Hopefully it will be one railway that runs on time and is not affected by the "wrong sort of leaves!
Very impressive, sure beats a plastic water fountain as a garden feature. Hopefully it will be one railway that runs on time and is not affected by the "wrong sort of leaves! 
Consigliere
Hows it progressing? 
Hows it progressing?
Not done much really, got some more rails drilled and bent to do another couple of 6m track panels so just need some time to fire up the welder and stick them together. Then i'll lay it all out on the grass to see how it all lies before getting the shovel out and digging into the lawn.
This is currently a full run of the line
I'd love a steam engine but for the most part they're more money than i've ever spent on a car do don't think its a realistic goal any time soon
I really like the look of these but they're £15,000! https://www.stationroadsteam.com/feldbahn-0-6-0---7-14-inch-gauge-0-6-0st-stock-code-fb060/
I really like the look of these but they're £15,000! https://www.stationroadsteam.com/feldbahn-0-6-0---7-14-inch-gauge-0-6-0st-stock-code-fb060/