HSBA Garden Railway

[curtis]

Wow Curtis! That's truly impressive! What a lot you've managed to squeeze in and all beautifully landscaped. Those rendered walls are a really great touch and finish it off nicely. The music you've chosen for the video is spot on too. Magnificent!

Rik

My wife said the music had a "Great British Baking Show" vibe (GBBO has a different name in the US) which I get now she said it!

Thank you. We're looking forward to it growing in to hopefully give it more depth and coverage. A few of the concrete blocks need making more aesthetically pleasing. As we're in Jersey I'm going to try and use some 12mm clippings to create a miniaturised Jersey pink granite wall. Not sure how it will go but should be a learning experience:

But as I said above - your shared thoughts on the planning of your railway was very insightful.

 

[dunnyrail]

My wife said the music had a "Great British Baking Show" vibe (GBBO has a different name in the US) which I get now she said it!

Thank you. We're looking forward to it growing in to hopefully give it more depth and coverage. A few of the concrete blocks need making more aesthetically pleasing. As we're in Jersey I'm going to try and use some 12mm clippings to create a miniaturised Jersey pink granite wall. Not sure how it will go but should be a learning experience:

But as I said above - your shared thoughts on the planning of your railway was very insightful.

Possibly the easiest may be to investigate Resin Moulding. The tricky part is creating the master but with practice an A4 or A5 size mould should be possible. However having cast a sheet you would need then to paint each stone, though a base colour followed up by picking individual stones with different shades is possible to replicate what you have shown here.

 

[curtis]

Recently been preparing and installing the decoders and switches. I was struggling to keep everything straight in my head so decider to label and tag everything. The plan below shows me which decoders types are in different places and what they're responsible for (helped me find the best positioning):



I've also got an inventory of the decoders, their IDs and which switches are connected to each terminal in the hopes that should something go wrong it should be easier to troubleshoot.


The plan is all the decoders will run from a one of two bus wires that run around the garden. The only exception so far is the decoder at Heffrach which runs straight from the tracks because I've not get got around to running trunking there. Sort of operated on the principle - get it working and then get it perfect.

 

[Windym87]

Love seeing this on Instagram and YouTube recently and im glad to see you're on here too!

Can i ask what you use to power the railway? I thought i saw a Wireless Multimaus handset in a photo so is it a Z21?

If so just wanted to know how it copes with your railway.

Mark

 

[curtis]

Love seeing this on Instagram and YouTube recently and im glad to see you're on here too!

Can i ask what you use to power the railway? I thought i saw a Wireless Multimaus handset in a photo so is it a Z21?

If so just wanted to know how it copes with your railway.

Mark

Why thank you. It's the fine folks on this forum that have provided a lot of support and guidance.

I used a Wireless Multimaus from Roco, yes. It connects to a Z21 system built by MD-Electronics. Most of my digital equipment is from there (aside from a few LGB decoders that came with locos).

I have:

• MZSpro (8amp)
• MZSpro Booster (8amp) not yet installed

I also use their switch decoders (4 and 8 terminals) and have in storage their detection modules which will be added later..

 

[phils2um]

so decider to label and tag everything

WHAT!? That's sacrilege! Takes all the guesswork out.

 

[Paul M]

WHAT!? That's sacrilege! Takes all the guesswork out.

German Efficiency

 

[The Shed]

Excellent job all round on your garden railway, labelling the point decoders is not just German Efficiency, good old fashioned English common sense.

With regard to the MD VKW, not sure how recent your acquisitions are, had the great pleasure to meet Marius Dege at the recent three day Garden Railway Festival 2022 - LGB Friends Lower Rhine at the Bochum Dahlhausen Railway Museum.

One of his more recent improvements/enhancements is to replace the 3D printed housings with injection moulded ones, he very kindly replaced all of mine there and then.

Info supplied as an aide de memoire, for when you next contact him or place an order, you could make a polite request about acquiring the later injection moulding housings should you require them.

 

[JimmyB]

Almost the same, I have just started a spreadsheet of my locos with details of Rx fitted, appropriate Tx, battery types and charge requirements, I am sure alzheimer's will kick one day

 

[dunnyrail]

Almost the same, I have just started a spreadsheet of my locos with details of Rx fitted, appropriate Tx, battery types and charge requirements, I am sure alzheimer's will kick one day

Good plan, mine is all on cards for each loco that I use to record usage and charging. Tried spreadsheet for recording usage time etc but that was a faff as I had to write it down anyway. BUT putting the basics of what is in each loco is now on my ‘round to it’ list.

 

[curtis]

Excellent job all round on your garden railway, labelling the point decoders is not just German Efficiency, good old fashioned English common sense.

With regard to the MD VKW, not sure how recent your acquisitions are, had the great pleasure to meet Marius Dege at the recent three day Garden Railway Festival 2022 - LGB Friends Lower Rhine at the Bochum Dahlhausen Railway Museum.

One of his more recent improvements/enhancements is to replace the 3D printed housings with injection moulded ones, he very kindly replaced all of mine there and then.

Info supplied as an aide de memoire, for when you next contact him or place an order, you could make a polite request about acquiring the later injection moulding housings should you require them.

View attachment 299580

Thank you! That's really appreciated. Yeah, the labelling has already helped a few times when looking for issues so glad I spent the time on it!

I need to check. My last batch seemed 'improved' but I hadn't payed too much attention to it. Moulded ones could be it! I think I have a handful of the older casing but I'll check and ask for me next order!

 

[curtis]

Well, next Saturday is our first public open day so we've trying to get things in line. We've been in and out the garden (baring two weeks in the US) and the recent weather seems to have helped things establish.

I finally managed to make the grade crossing. I won't like, not exactly the best job in the world but I've wanted something like this since I was a kid. If anyone remember's the chap from Poulton-le-Fylde that used to be in the back of the LGB catalogues in the 00's - that's where I first saw it. Main thing - it works!

We also did a mini-open evening a month or so ago. We opened the garden to friends and family and mostly spent the evening enjoying drinks and snacks. I'm happy to say the trains ran continuously with only 1 or 2 derailments (in the same spot) but was an enjoyable evening


I've also fixed the tracks down under the work bench and wired them in. This was done just before our break to the US


Here are some shots of the garden from a few weeks ago showing how the plants are starting to establish. We're really looking forward to where everything is next summer with more time for nature to do its thing! (although Nikki pointed out the number of weeds there suggest it is already doing it!)


Finally, some from last weekend. I managed to get both Monbifeld and Steintal station switches connected to the decoders allowing for remote control. You can spy idlemarvel 's rails in the background which was keeping me company during the work.


This week, our building is going to pop round and cut some more paving tiles to act as platforms. You can see an example of on in the last picture and it's not too bad for effect!

 

[Paul M]

Looks a treat, you've done really well in a relatively short time

 

[dunnyrail]

My view entirely, come a very long way in a pretty short period of time. Just shows what a focused mind can achieve.

 

[curtis]

Much appreciated. I don't think the pictures above are the best and certainly some tidying needed (these were quick shots) such as some exposed concrete blocks, wonky buildings and exposed plastic but we've had a lot of fun realising a childhood dream!

One thing I've realised, there is a fun diversity of skills required in this hobby but the one job I've not enjoyed was laying the cable trucking

 

[Henri]

What a great layout!!

 

[playmofire]

Almost the same, I have just started a spreadsheet of my locos with details of Rx fitted, appropriate Tx, battery types and charge requirements, I am sure alzheimer's will kick one day

Apparently, regular problem solving helps keep it away, so don't get too organised.

 

[curtis]

Yesterday we held our first open day. Here are some pictures from the evening when people had left. The garden and layout was in a nice state so was able to captures some shots!





Finally, a couple of shots of the evening before the open day - I managed to finally get the lights on the bridge and some of the station lighting working! Nikki is very happy with the overall effect!

 

[curtis]

I recently came into possession of a GoPro. The first (and best) use case I could think of was getting a driver's eye view of the layout.

I also wanted to share the gift my wife got me for our first (Paper) anniversary. She had someone do a digital pencil drawing the track plan and then got it printed ~A2 size. Here is the digital copy though which I think they did a great job of!

 

[dunnyrail]

Nice touch to put the track plan with the vid, great to have a trip round your line. Sorry but I had to turn the music sound off. Personally I find that music irritates me with railway vids of all kinds. But other than that which is a personal thing a great vid. Next time what about a time lapse? They can be a lot of fun.