The Twitter Model Train Show -

For those who missed it at the time this is the tour I did for the #TwitterModelTrainShow on the 21st March 2020.

Hello all, I am Harriet Board and this is my workshop. I haven’t got all my tools in yet so it is a bit sparse.
I pay a peppercorn rent to my landlord, Maker of Things, and in return I work on his garden railway.
Lets do a tour.

Harriet is standing in the middle of her workshop. It is a wide angle photo showing three walls, her workbench and tool bag, pallet truck, band saw, saw horses, and some timber. — Hi all!

As you can see there are tram tracks set in the concrete floor at the back of the workshop. They are 7 1/4” gauge.

Harriet is standing at the back of her workshop pointing at two grooves in the concrete floor where the tram tracks are. Her pallet truck, sweeping broom, and band saw are in the background. — Look, tram tracks.

The tracks go through this roller shutter door in the back of the workshop.

Harriet is facing away from the camera looking at the small roller shutter in the back corner of the workshop, next to her pallet truck, work bench and waste bin. — That a way!

Lets get the roller shutter up and I will take you through.

Come on outside to the back yard and the garden railway.

Harriet is walking through the small roller shutter past her workbench. — This way.

Hey all, drone photo!
You can see where the track comes out of my workshop, crosses the yard, and joins the main garden railway.

An aerial view of Harriet standing outside the back of her workshop. You can see the back wall of the workshop building and the railway track joining the garden railway to the workshop. — Can you see me?

Here is some of the landlord’s old rolling stock. It is standard gauge, about 1:6 scale but he is changing the railway to show a 1:3 scale fantasy of St Nicholas Fields as if it was a narrow gauge railway.

Harriet is standing next to four wagons on the track outside her workshop. There are two wagons that are only rolling chassis, and two that have timber bodies. One is black and has ‘Bestwood’ on the side, the other is red and has ‘Arnold Sands’ on the side. — Wagons and chassis

Lets shove these into the workshop for a moment…

Harriet is pushing the two rolling chassis wagons into the workshop with her foot. — Ooof, get in there!

I will be converting them to about 1:3 scale bodies on 2’ narrow gauge.
They will be matching, one pair loaded and one pair empty, for the fiddle yard.
The bodies will be made of upcycled scrap as befitting St Nick’s.

Harriet is looking at the two rolling chassis in the workshop. They are in front of her band saw. — They look tiny in here.

Anyway, lets go back outside and I will show you the rest of the garden railway.

Harriet is walking out of the small roller shutter back to the garden railway. — Back outside.

This section of the railway hasn’t been worked on yet, it is just tracks fixed to the tarmac, so we’ll keep walking.
The garden is only 48’ by 20 ‘, or 14.6m by 6m, so not very big. You can see the plans chalked on the ground.

Harriet is walking across the tarmac in the garden railway. There are two curved tracks laid on the tarmac and the two wagons are in the background. There is writing chalked on the ground. — Mind the tracks.

This is the 1:3 scale model of Beryl as a locomotive. She will be a proper electric vehicle running on batteries and remote control on the layout. Like prototype Beryl, model Beryl also has a shipping container to live in.
The landlord scratch built her.

Harriet is pointing at a small brass built locomotive that looks like a warehouse delivery truck. It is on the tracks outside a scale shipping container. In the background is the bike shed and the building on the garden railway, and some of the miniature figures. — Hey Beryl! How’re you doing?

Model Beryl still needs a lot of work, lights, RC equipment, painting, etc. but there is at least a little man to drive her, even though it should really be a little woman figure driving on the recycling round.

Harriet is holding the door open on the brass locomotive and showing a little figure inside. — Little man!

This is the St Nick’s bicycle shelter I modelled recently. It is only made from 4x2s and a bit of corrugated roof sheet, but close enough to the prototype.

Harriet is looking at a model of a wooden framed bicycle shelter, with a corrugated tin roof. There is a miniature figure carrying a bucket in the foreground, and the pond on the left. — I built that.

I also built the base framing for this building. The landlord is making the building out of some kind of white faced weather proof MDF stuff I think. ‘Thick cardboard’ in my opinion!

Harriet is standing in front of the pond pointing at the base of a white building. There are a couple of miniature figured nearby. — I put the foundations in.

If we come over here…

Oops, excuse me, Sorry I didn’t see you there…

Harriet is walking along the paving next to the pond trying to avoid walking into one of the miniature figures. — Oops, sorry.

I also put in this bit of fencing too. It was a test to see if it looked right and I think it does. That does mean I have a whole lot more to make and put in though.

Harriet is standing in front of the pond and showing off the green fencing. There is another miniature figure nearby, and the white building in the background. — It’s a little fence.

OK, lets go and have a look back stage. You can see from the writing on the ground what else is going in, and the line of the fencing I need to make.

An overhead photo of Harriet walking across the garden railway. The writing on the tarmac says ‘grass area’, ‘compound entrance’, ‘Trees’, ‘straw bale toilet’. There are some miniature figures of people doing some ground works. — Over here.

Oh, hang on, this siding here will store a bogie wagon with seats and a boat for volunteers going to clear out rubbish and weed from the River Beck.

Keep up the hard work chaps! Those invisible shovels are really ‘effective’!
Hehe!

Harriet is looking at a railway siding next to the miniature shipping container. There are some miniature looking like they are working there. — Working hard?

Anyway, back to the back stage tour.
Come around here behind this wall.
There will be a lot of trees hiding the view to this bit that leads to ‘The Compound where wagons of collected recycling will be processed’ but is is actually just a fiddle yard.

Harriet is standing next to the end of a white wall where the railway tracks disappear behind at the back of the garden railway. — Exit stage right….

Come along, there is plenty of space.

The fiddle yard is back over in this corner, and this track is part of the main oval of running line.

Harriet is standing a little way down a narrow area behind the white wall where the railway track runs down to some points. She is beckoning us to follow. — Just a bit further…

You can see there is a ‘tunnel’ here in the back of the building where wagons will be hidden, and the running line continuing around to the left.

Harriet is standing near the back corner of the garden showing a tunnel mouth going through the back of the building, and a track going around the back of the building, and straight into the corner. — Tunnel!

From the back of the building you can see where the fiddle yard track goes the wagon store, and the main line goes around the back. It is a busy little space.

Harriet is in the corner of the garden showing the track and points of the fiddle yard behind the building. — It’s the fiddle yard.

This little siding is where the bogie wagon and boat will be hidden when the volunteers are ‘cleaning The Beck’.

Harriet is pointing at the short straight siding going into the corner of the garden railway. — It’s gonna be The Beck.

This is where the full and empty wagons will hide. Beryl will pull wagons from here to simulate travelling with empty and full wagons of recycling collection.

Harriet is showing two sidings behind the building marked ‘Full trucks’ and ‘Empty truck’. Ther eis also an area marked as ‘Trees’ to hide the wagons from view from the other side. — A hidey hole for the wagons.

So that brings us back around to the front of the garden around the other end of the building, stage left, so to speak. This will be well hidden with trees and the corner of the building.

Harriet is walking around the left corner of the building around to the front of the garden again. There is railway tracks and a short run of white wall coming from the end of the building wall. — And stage left.

And back to the bit of fencing at the front.
Need to be careful here as it is very narrow and there is no fence yet on my right.

Harriet is at the very front of the garden outside the short white wall and the green fencing. The pond, building, and various miniature figures are in the background, as is the locomotive, bicycle shelter, and shipping container. — Carefully does it!

So there you have it, a little tour of the landlord’s 1:3 scale garden railway as a work in progress.

Thank you for joining me.