First Railway

[Andrew Smith]

This is my proposed plan for my first narrow gauge garden railway. It's going to be at ground level on floating ballast and using battery operated and live steam engines. The siding at the bottom will go to a raised area for servicing locos. I'd be grateful for any feedback or suggestions. I'm concerned the corners are too tight, but have limited room. Thanks

 

[Gizzy]

Should be fine Andrew.

I couldn't quite see on your plan but I guess you are using R3 points and curves....

 

[JimmyB]

Andrew, to expand on what Gizzy has said, assumption is R3 curves, however if not, are your locos capable of traversing tighter bends. what is the length of your passing loop, is it long enough to hold a full train, also I would consider a second passing loop, about half way around, my railway only has a single passing loop, and a second one would be handy.
However, bottom line is it is your railway etc..... and you will learn from your "mistakes", though not always "mistakes, often just omissions.

 

[railwayman198]

For live steam go for a minimum of R3 if possible. Some of the smaller steamers will manage R1, but even they will slow significantly on tight curves.

 

[Paul M]

As suggested, use the largest curves you can, I'm in a similar position being very short of space, I've used roughly R1 radius with flexitrack, it works fine, but I'm limited to very short wheel based locos

 

[dunnyrail]

It does very much depend on the live steam you are planning, many of the larger suggest quite large radius curves whereas a Roundhouse 0-4-0 will happily run on R1. In the early days Roundhouse used to test their locomotives on R1 but not sure that applies to all of their locomotives now. Again if R1, couplings can be an issue on the loops if propelling over the curve of the point where a centre coupling used of choice by live steam guys can buffer lock. So perhaps to help more we need to understand your curve reference no, as said not readable on your plan in here.

 

[RDFMTS2]

I would echo the comment about using the widest curves you can for live steam. Our previous garden being larger, I relaid the railway to minimum of 1600mm radius, and 2400mm radius where I could. The exhibition layout I am a part of usually is 1700mm for running lines, and 1550mm radius for sidings, but we do run some quite big south African locos sometimes. Our current garden being smaller has a 800mm radius ballon loop which all my locos will run around quite happily, but they do slow down and sometimes need driving a little harder around the loop. Mine are all 0-4-0 or 0-4-2 wheel configuration, so if you are happy to stick to models of smaller prototypes then you should be OK. Certainly Roundhouse, Accucraft and Regner 0-4-0 locos will cope with 600mm radius albeit with the tendency to slow down or need some extra regulator on the tighter curves. Running on a smaller garden railway can be more fun and it does mean you can concentrate on your efforts so may well end up with a more detailed railway than if you had many acres to run in. On zooming in it does look like you have drawn 600mm radius curves, (what others have called R1 which only works if you know the maker as well, as they all seem to use different sizes for their R numbers for radius of track). Better to just use the measurement size. I tend to use 'flexible' track, partly as it is cheaper, but it also means you can ease into curves which will help trains run more smoothly, and hopefully stay on the track should a train be going a little too fast into a curve, not that any of us will ever do that on purpose, but sometimes a manual steam loco can get carried away. May I recommend looking at the 16mm association website and maybe contacting the Solihull/South B'ham 16mm local group (which covers most of B'ham now) some of whom hold regular steam ups and run on 45mm track, others run on 32mm track as they model 2' gauge. All the best with building your railway, we never regretted moving up to a larger scale and moving (mainly) to the garden, about 25 years ago.

 

[Andrew Smith]

Thanks for all the replies, they are really helpful. This design is a mix of r1 and r2 curves. I am planning to run short wheel based, narrow gauge trains, which will also be quite short. However, I am going to re-look at it and see if I can make use r2 and r3 instead.

 

[Gizzy]

Thanks for all the replies, they are really helpful. This design is a mix of r1 and r2 curves. I am planning to run short wheel based, narrow gauge trains, which will also be quite short. However, I am going to re-look at it and see if I can make use r2 and r3 instead.

Just be aware that 8 ft diameter LGB R3 curves need twice as much space as LGB R1 which are 4 ft diameter.

You could also consider PIKO R3 curves, as these are 6 ft, with LGB R2 5 ft diameter curves. The photo attached shows LGB R1, LGB R2 and Piko R3 together....