The Heatherburn Garden Railway (00)

[87 101]

Hi all i'm currently building a 00 gauge garden railway in the north east of england. Work on the track bed is almost finished after 20 months of construction with the remainder of the track due to be laid over the next few weeks. Regular updates have been posted on the railwayz forum now for about a year and the heatherburn website has also recently been updated. The address is http://www.freewebs.com/heatherburngardenrailway

Here's a few pics of the completed sections......

[mmurnin900]

Thats brilliant. I hope mine looks as good

[Infrontcat]

Excellent stuff Dave. Some lovely shots and a nice cross section of stock on show. Any chance of some 'full size' shots mate? I've been a lazy gett so far this year and done next to nothing on my garden layout but yours has inspired me a little...

Time to get out the tools again methinks

Cheers

Tim

[Pedanticmongrel]

OMG! I am jealous, your constructing more or less my dream model railway, just with in my mind "Boring" stock, you need more steam! oh well, the only thing getting me thru this jealousy is the thought that when it's pissing it down out there I can still operate my piddly scale 3/4 mile long railway! lol, anyway nice work, I'm impressed! p.s. get some steam!

[87 101]

Just a very quick update. Today my flexi track arrived all five boxes of it so tonight I managed to get a few lengths down with the result of history in the making as the first powered train made its way through the hole in the garage wall and out into the garden. Hopefully the weather will improve for the weekend so I can do some 'serious' tracklaying!

[87 101]

Tonight I managed to get some of the track down mainly the branch line and was rewarded with a couple of hours testing. The sight of an APT blasting it's way up from the garage to the garden was awesome! Hopefully tomorrow I can get the rest of the mainlines down. Watch this space....

[87 101]

As usual in this country rain stops play however I have managed to get the main line down as far as Parkway station. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit drier. Here's a couple of pics showing the new track in place. Where the two royal mail coaches are is the entrance to the station area. This is about 16 feet long by about 18 inches wide. Also i've posted a few more pics of the inside section........

[mmurnin900]

Looks fantastic,
was there a sale on blue leds lol. Only joking they look fantastic

[87 101]

The LEDs were originaly battery power christmas tree lights that I picked up from a local shop for £1.99 a set. With 20 LEDs per set I could'nt refuse a bargan so I bought several sets of mainly white and blue with some red and green thrown in for good mesure! The LEDs were carfully separated from the wiring then reused on the railway for lighting with power supplied via 1k resistors.

[mmurnin900]

Wow thats a coincidence. The blue does look very well

[sishades]

Crikey or words to that effect!!! I love the station building, and the viaducts, and the scenary and ......

[87 101]

Thanks guys for all the feedback much apreciated. As im now on five difrent forums I thought it would be easer if I cut and paste any updates so heres tonights......

Yesterday in what seamed like a hurricane I managed to get the track for the main lines laid so now at last the indoor layout is fully connected to the first section constructed last year. I still have to set the track in mortar and solder the links across the joints but it is possible to push trains right round. I also extended the tracks from the bottom of the incline through the lakeside station area over the decking bridge and through the gap in the railings to the top of the wall. I have decided that the station at lakeside will be just two platforms now and so have slewed the tracks to the middle of the baseboard to allow for the platforms. If anyone has some old hornby platforms going very cheep PM me as I need loads!! Moving on to parkway station I have altered the track plan slightly so as to use the two LH points that were for st davids station. By changing one of the points from a RH to a LH has now created a space for the signal box to fit. I have taken a few quick pics but have to go out on a call so will post them later.

[tom92240]

Hi Dave,

Quick question, what do you lay the track onto when in the garden. A friend and I are going to start on a 00 garden railway project and he suggested a concrete base stuck onto mastic strips and i thought of some sort of gravel. Just wondered what you had done, and how well it works?

Tom

[87 101]

Hi Tom I used a concrete base for the ground section and timber deckboard for the other bits. I constructed the concrete base first then cut up some rubber tiles and cemented them to the concrete then filled in the gaps when set. The track is then pinned to the rubber tiles and then held in place using a mortar mix. I have wondered weather those mastic track beds advertised in model rail would work outdoors.

[sanctuary]

Great layout and pictures however is it the norm with out door railways to have the pictures in blocks of 4, I've noticed this with other outdoor layouts in the forum the pictures are not separate when posted, Tim does the same with Moorcroft.