Garden railway in 16mm: Wilmington Light Railway

[Greengiant]

Made a start on ground clearance for the final outdoor section of the line to be built.
Dragged out of storage the trestle bridge which is to feature in this section, to assess the work needed. Initial look says not much to do, main thing is a fresh coat of creosote, no small task on the 12 foot long bridge.









Martin

 

[simond]

Made a start on ground clearance for the final outdoor section of the line to be built.
Dragged out of storage the trestle bridge which is to feature in this section, to assess the work needed. Initial look says not much to do, main thing is a fresh coat of creosote, no small task on the 12 foot long bridge.

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Martin

That’s pretty remarkable!

 

[David Hall]

Following this story is really enjoyable. The amount of work you have put in is amazing!

Made a start on ground clearance for the final outdoor section of the line to be built.
Dragged out of storage the trestle bridge which is to feature in this section, to assess the work needed. Initial look says not much to do, main thing is a fresh coat of creosote, no small task on the 12 foot long bridge.

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Martin

As Simon said, that bridge is spectacular!

 

[Greengiant]

Getting quite close to catching up in the build now.

Not done much on the railway for a while, I have been otherwise occupied exhibiting my 7mm layout 'The Yard' at the Bressingham and Farnham shows (2025).

Had a bit of spare time this week to make the bridge feet repairs.

These I cut from reclaimed hard wood window frames.



Rather than nail them, I choose screws which would put a bit less stress on the bridge when fixing.





All five done. A few cross braces to fix, then a light wire brush off and a coat of creosote.



Martin

 

[Greengiant]

Now virtually up to date now with this post...

With the arrival of warmer weather, enthusiasm has returned to get on with the garden railway. A start has been made on the indoor section which has to share space with another 16mm project First Sunday in June. This indoor section will be heavily industrial, featuring large factories, working cranes and radio controlled lorries.

It was more like a game of chess, moving stuff out the way to make room for constructing the storage framework, then to move it all back, hopefully in a neat organised manor.

I made a rough drawing of what I needed, bought a load of 2x2, then set to work with the help from some mates. Ultimately I should end up with a baseboard area 'L' shaped of 27.5 x 11.5 x 3 feet for an industrial area that is feed from the garden railway, underneath will be stored the baseboards for the under construction 16mm layout, First Sunday in June. Above will be a shallow shelf for odds and ends, also the fascia (Saved from the Theobald's Yard layout) will be affixed to this concealing the lighting. I am not sure whether to keep the indoor section in this thread or have a new thread for the indoor bit.



A few hours spread across a couple of days and we have made good progress.

We started with this. Back right is a rack storing the First Sunday in June baseboards etc. Front right are the baseboards for The Yard, all the supports etc. for this are left in the trailer. On the wall are a couple of display cabinets and a scaffold tower. Most of which has now been put into the other shed and garage. Eventually I want this shed to be just a layout going round three sides, but initially it will be one end and a side, the other side will remain as workbench and tools while we build the layouts.



Scraps of wood and some clamps working out various positions and measurements, many of which were chalked on the wall. Baseboard height will be just under a metre, gives enough clearance for the existing kitchen cupboards and be at a height not too much higher than the outside railway. Baseboard top to underside of fascia will be just over 700mm. I did scale up some of the factories from The Yard layout, the tallest one would reach up above the planned fascia!



A few photos of the work in progress for the framework.







This basic main framework complete.





Next we are hoping to get the shelf frames installed and covered with OSB, then the FSIJ baseboards can be finally stored in their new home. If we have time, the whole baseboard top may get done.

Once complete we can get on with the build of First Sunday in June, I would like to get that finished by early next year. The garden line will develop in parallel. There is just a few smallish things to do on The Yard (7mm narrow gauge) then we will call it a day with that layout, put it into off-site storage, to come out for exhibitions (next one is Railex, on 23-24 May. We do have bookings into 2028) and a another magazine photo shoot in June.

Martin

 

[Greengiant]

On and off I am still working away at the indoor baseboards, but with the nice weather, I just needed to get outside and do something.
That something was to lay some more artificial grass that was kindly donated by my neighbour.
The first area to be covered is the inner curve by the hedge.


Some bits of cardboard were taped together to make a template.


A roller then pressed the cardboard onto the rail. This cardboard was not ideal being quite thick, so took a lot of pressing.


It leaves a light indent of the rail.




A piece of paper with a mark 60mm inside the indent will enable the template to clear the ballast. Moving this along the indent marking off in pencil to give a cutting line. I cut this out with a jigsaw at low speed.


Dropped in place to check and trim if needed.


The outside table became a handy workbench.


Remembering to flip over the template (I had marked it with TOP). It was outlined onto the grass base using a white Chinagraph pencil.


I am now left with a cutting line.


Scissors are extremely hard work to cut the grass base, much easier is one of these curved Stanley blades used by carpet fitters, it just slices through the base mat very easily.


Grass dropped in place, it will eventually be blended in with ballast.


The opposite end had a triangular bit and also an odd shaped piece that goes around the proposed site of the cattle dock.


I did cut this bit out first.


I also cut a narrow strip along the right in front of the hedge. It will be tweaked and blended in with ballast. Quite pleased with how it turned out.






Martin