patrick

Maureen took this photo this afternoon while the new LGB Rio Grande passenger cars were on their inaugural run. IMG_20250706_213102.heic

High noon at the depot.

The latest addition to the railroad is the trestle over the pond built from oak stripwood I found on sale at a local hardware store. The tunnel has also been daylighted. The hill was just not big enough to make it convincing.

I recall seeing a palvan being turned on the turntable in Tralee once as the door on one side was inoperable.

Timber was indeed shipped by rail from Fenit until the early seventies for Mc Cowens, who had a number of private sidings in Tralee. I recall the timber being unload by the steam cranes and Bulleid opens and flats being shunted by a G class from the pier to the station. To the best of my knowledge the startch shipment Mayner mentioned was the last rail traffic on the pier. I was a teenager at the time and having got wind of the shipment cycled with a friend from Tralee to observe the action. Tralee no longer had a G class so a CIE lorry with a sleeper tied to the front was used to shunt wagons on and off of the pier. An A class hauled the train, all Bulleid opens except for one H van loaded with tarps to protect the shipment which was in sacks. Oh to have had a camera that day.

Given that i imagine the railroad as a rundown line on its last legs about 1950 a little overgrowth is desired. When it starts to get out of hand it the roadbed gets a dose of weed and grass killer. Although the garden is generally flat there are a few low spots which require regular reballasting due to settling and washouts after heavy rainfall, just like the prototype.

After running trains for a while i decided to make some trackwork changes in order to improve accessibility and operation. The short siding near the tunnel was removed as it proved to be awkward to switch and made the area look too congested. The switch was then used to add an additional siding to the yard. The main line was also relocated in order to replace the planned curve bridge over the pond with a straight one. I'm planning through truss bridge here which will be more appropriate and easier to build.

Since my new garden railroad is American outline i feel it's better start a new thread here than continue on the Irish Layouts one. The line has been out of service for over two months while the pond and waterfall were put in. With this job almost completed a temporary bridge has now been installed allowing service to be restored. Apart from ongoing landscaping the next project is to build the bridge and tunnel portals.

Progress.

Cut and sort of fill, garden railroad style. What is excavated for the pond becomes the reason for the tunnel.

Excavation work has started on the pond. I'm not as young as I used to be and the ground is pretty hard so I'm trying to get a little done every day without killing myself! The layout has also come through a heavy storm last week, sever enough to warrant tornado warnings. While I have yet to run a train everything seems to be in order but some ballasting will need to be done in places where it settled. Thankfully very little was washed away in the downpour.

20240812_015120.mp4

It all started years ago when I got a great deal on the Aristo Craft 2-8-0. It was my intention to have it as a display model but of course I had to see it run so acquired a controller and some track and started to pick up some rolling stock. Occasionally we would set it up in the garden but I never did get the opportunity to set up a permanent outdoor layout. After selling our condo we are now renting a house from Maureens brother where we plan to stay for the next two years or so. A few weeks back we had our former foster girls, age eight and eleven, over for a weekend. We set up a simple oval on the lawn and started running trains. At this point it was decided to set it up on a more permanent basis in a herb garden we are planning. Given that the layout will be dismantled after two years and the ground is fortunately very flat and hard no great effort was made preparing the track bed. After the location of the track was established the track bed received a liberal dose of weed and grass killer. Once the vegetation was cleared the track was replaced using black wire ties to keep the sections together and was then ballasted and leveled. The coarse grass will be kept in each side of the track as it keeps the ballast in place. How this will work out remains to be seen especially during the harsh winters here in NE Ohio, the layout is literally a few hundred feet from Lake Erie. Should things not work out the track could be lifted in a few hours if necessary. Control is dc track power and so far operation has been pretty reliable. The layout has no name as yet but I see it as a branch of a small Colorado railroad which sees a train a few days a week. Any suggestions from anyone with some knowledge of the Colorado narrow guage would be very welcome. Although essentially a roundy roundy display layout there is potential for a little prototypical operation when the mood strikes.

I love this video Maureen took earlier today. It really captures the atmosphere of the layout. IMG_9114.MOV

Progress. It's starting to look like a railroad.