My (Currently Unnamed) Garden Layout

[biggsy1984]

I started my layout about a year ago and thought I'd share my progress. It's an FN3 scale narrow gauge layout shaped in a folded dogbone with a large space in the centre to operate it.

Here is an early plan I drew up, It's located on a slope so the top 1/3 is dug into the side of the hill with the spoil to be used to raise the track further down the slope. I divided the plan into 3 phases.
Firstly the loop on the left side will be constructed with a temporary track to join the tracks forming a circle.
Second is to create the double track line mainline towards the other loop
The third phase will be to create a large raised area for the return loop at the bottom of the picture.


The next few pictures are of the initial construction















Once the initial raised section was built up and compacted down I laid down some track directly onto ballast on a membrane





By Autumn 2025 trains were running in a simple loop with a 15-16' diameter, I should point out that this is a dead track layout with battery operated locomotives. I'll add the next updates in another post

 

[biggsy1984]

After an extremely wet January and February I noticed that the track had become uneven in a few places so I decided to re-lay all the track onto blocks laid on compacted sand.

Here is the track laid out roughly before the work began



And here it is after building it back up and re-ballasting it.





Next I started building up the centre to create a series of hills for a miniature forest





and here are the trees ready to be planted, a mixture of Alberta Dwarf Spruce and a variety of Dwarf Blue Spruce



Planted






Here's a shot of my Bachmann Climax running on the mainline with the Consolidation in the siding.



And here's a shot of the Climax steaming through the trees in the sunshine

 

[biggsy1984]

Here is a video of the Consolidation, this video was made before many of the trees were planted

This video is the most recent and shows the Climax running on the up to date layout

 

[Paul M]

That looks brilliant! Yes whatever way you lay your track, it will need a firm base

 

[dunnyrail]

Very nice and all that garden to go at, do I sence some more land grabbing in the future. Zig zags and loops will take care of the slope to say nothing of adding to the fun of operations.

 

[maxi-model]

Really nice work on your line's construction. Yes, good track bed preparation is esential. I very much like your choice of motive power. And trees........I learnt the hard way. You know those pretty little bright green ones. I forgot to read the lable when I bought 3. Got round to it 10 years later. It said - Average growth over 10 years.......18 feet ! "That's about right", I thought, as I looked out of my 1st floor bedroom window watching their tops gently sway in a stiff breeze. Things grow, even the dwarf species. Good thing is as at 1.20.3 a 20ft tree scales out at around 400 ft, which is about the height of the tallest Redwoods can attain. They make great features, with whole communities sheltering under them. Max

 

[biggsy1984]

Thank you for the kind comments.

To answer your question dunnyrail, yes there is a master plan behind the scenes which involves building a much larger layout in the future. At the moment I thought I’d keep it manageable and just get it up and running!

I’d like to eventually incorporate a large bridge/trestle which utilises the slope so that we could walk underneath it to access the bottom of the garden.

And to Maxi Model, I bought these varieties as I’ve read they only grow 3/4 inches per year so I can get away with pruning them once a year - hopefully…

Like you say, the scale of these models would allow them to be 5-6ft tall and still look fairly in keeping.

 

[PhilP]

To answer your question dunnyrail, yes there is a master plan behind the scenes which involves building a much larger layout in the future. At the moment I thought I’d keep it manageable and just get it up and running!

You do realise, that once you get to a stage where you can actually run trains..... The rate of work on the rest of the line tends to slow down markedly..

PhilP.

 

[Rhinochugger]

And to Maxi Model, I bought these varieties as I’ve read they only grow 3/4 inches per year so I can get away with pruning them once a year - hopefully…

Oh yes - we've all done that

Looking at the title of this thread, I'm not sure that the garden needs a name, but hey - it's looking good for a lot of effort.

My track base follows Colonel Stephens principles - keep it light and simple, if it settles, lift and re-lay. The garden's always moving, old tree roots rot away, new tree roots come along - but the trains keep a'moving , on down to San Antone ................

 

[biggsy1984]

You do realise, that once you get to a stage where you can actually run trains..... The rate of work on the rest of the line tends to slow down markedly..

PhilP.

You’re absolutely right! I’ve noticed this happening already

 

[dunnyrail]

Good plan, so easy to bite off more than you can chew and get stuck.

 

[PhilP]

Just perhaps.....

Some of us started a little too small?

PhilP.