Its been a while...

Its been a while since anything much has happened of significance out on the garden railway. Recently the state of part of the main trestle bridge demanded that some significant replacement work be carried out. 

Below can be seen part of the dismantling of the old span (which really couldn't be called much of a span anyways because it was a few bits of timber screwed together). 'Tis a little scary to see rails without sleepers hanging down…..

Besides work carried out on the bridge much of the foliage on the railway is growing quite abundantly as can be seen in the below views requiring a fair bit of trimming to allow trains to run. Now that we are going into summer operations should start back up….

Thomas arrives...

A few weeks ago, an order was placed to obtain Thomas, all the way from Sodor. He has since made his arrival and is seen here on his first train on his new home line.

Garden Railway Videos

The other night, got home from youth group, and viewed over the day's footage - that of chasing real steam trains. I thought about having a go at editing the footage I retrieved, so I went on. The next day some was done with footage of trains running out in the garden. Below are the results... Enjoy....

Wheat Bags and "Potato" Sacks

Following the modification of the LGB van for "Shaw's Market Produce", the empty wagon was crying out for some trade. The sewing machine was dug out, some old cloth found and some very primitive sacks/bags resulted. One was left open at the top and some green wool inserted to give the impression of green produce being held inside. 

Railway Carriage Construction

Over the last day or so, much progress has been made on the carriage that I commenced several weeks ago, following obtaining a balsa stripper (imagine a table saw, but with an exacto blade instead) the strip for the panel lines on the carriage was cut, from balsa. Cheap and cheerful, it actually worked! Below is a closeup of the 'panel work' and illustrations of gluing the various sides together, with final examining on the chassis.

Summer Sun

Over the past few weeks, Sydney has been cooking, Queensland being covered with flood water, and more recently been blown about by cyclone Yasi. Closer to home several plants on the railway have dried out, and they look rather dead. Occasionally the trains come out for a run, several Garden Railway afternoon tea's being arranged, providing the perfect opportunity (and excuse) to bring out most of our rolling stock at once, a rare event.

Also a few additions to the "set" have been made, such as this building and another Mini Cooper, not sure whether the place is going to be a shop, a house or something else yet...it needs a sign of some sort.

Also, following some hunting on ebay.....some plans were dug up of Isle of Man rolling stock, guards van construction progresses, however I am still a bit stumped (or stopped) for how I am going to bend the carriage sides to the contour illustrated by the ends in the picture above, a jig will probably be employed.