Hello everyone,
I'm Alasdair, I purchased a PIKO diesel starter set in February, and have recently added about 40m of track, and am currently progressing the civil engineering works required to make this it around a communal car-park/garden area.
To give an idea of the scale of the works, it required a 5m long dry stone wall to be built, two tunnels dug and now a retaining wall for a 10m embankment along an earth bank. I still have to break through a stone wall. At which point I can begin to make the track a little less rock and roll.
Now all of the above might appear to suggest I've oodles of cash to throw at the hobby, but in fact I managed to get the track at a very reasonable price, and am unlikely to be expanding the rolling stock for some time to come sadly.
So why do I feel I need a garden railway, well I have a 4 and 5 year old, who both like to play with trains, and previously my OO set was getting some fairly heavy wear, and with the nice summer coming up I thought a garden railway might be a bit more robust and playable.
How right I was, we've already been using the two hopper wagons to move spoil, as well as barbie dolls! And yes, the loco has lost a handrail or two, but all is still working
I've never done scratch building before, but given I prefer modern UK rolling stock, and I've no interest in Gauge 1 finescale, both on cost and playability grounds. Thomas is an option but well I feel that will get old very quickly.
So I'm starting to look at whether I can 'create' some approximations of UK stock which will be low cost, and also robust. My first attempt is a class 153 style DMU, I've mocked this up with cereal boxes and some poster paints at present, and looking to get some IP engineering or similar bogies to try it out for looks and performance etc.
If this works out well then I'd look to create a class 37 or similar and then run this with off the shelf trucks.
I'm Alasdair, I purchased a PIKO diesel starter set in February, and have recently added about 40m of track, and am currently progressing the civil engineering works required to make this it around a communal car-park/garden area.
To give an idea of the scale of the works, it required a 5m long dry stone wall to be built, two tunnels dug and now a retaining wall for a 10m embankment along an earth bank. I still have to break through a stone wall. At which point I can begin to make the track a little less rock and roll.
Now all of the above might appear to suggest I've oodles of cash to throw at the hobby, but in fact I managed to get the track at a very reasonable price, and am unlikely to be expanding the rolling stock for some time to come sadly.
So why do I feel I need a garden railway, well I have a 4 and 5 year old, who both like to play with trains, and previously my OO set was getting some fairly heavy wear, and with the nice summer coming up I thought a garden railway might be a bit more robust and playable.
How right I was, we've already been using the two hopper wagons to move spoil, as well as barbie dolls! And yes, the loco has lost a handrail or two, but all is still working
I've never done scratch building before, but given I prefer modern UK rolling stock, and I've no interest in Gauge 1 finescale, both on cost and playability grounds. Thomas is an option but well I feel that will get old very quickly.
So I'm starting to look at whether I can 'create' some approximations of UK stock which will be low cost, and also robust. My first attempt is a class 153 style DMU, I've mocked this up with cereal boxes and some poster paints at present, and looking to get some IP engineering or similar bogies to try it out for looks and performance etc.
If this works out well then I'd look to create a class 37 or similar and then run this with off the shelf trucks.
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