Where has this year gone ! The last time I ran a train round the garden was april 2009 and the last trains to run on the undercover section was my birthday last july !! Since then the line has been mothballed due to lack of time and funds and also the constant threat of having to sell up and move has not helped with my motivation on the project. Yesterday I decided that I had to pull myself out of depression and do somthing about the state of the back garden. Fortunatly the electric strimmer still works so armed with some new strimmer wire it was time for some weeding !!

  















































Today im thinking of finishing off the render on the wall.

Oh My Dave! How in the world did you not destroy your scenery with that trimmer? I would have had to re-build everything, if I went out there with one of those!

I think WEEDS would stop me from having a garden railway. I hate them weeds! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

However I will like to see your   garden railway up and running again!

Wayne

It must be like rediscovering a long lost treasure seeing your work emerging from the overgrowth!  I'm really not sure I would have had the nerve to strim it.  I think I might have been out with the hand clippers!

It's great to see Heatherburn once more.

good to know you feel a bit more settled Dave, get the garden railway back on track (ooh tacky )
you know what Imean!
:doublethumb:lol::cool:

I think that this will be the start of Heatherburn Mk2. The trackbed is still as sound as the day it was built and the track just needs a blooming good clean. The rails still have the coat of WD40 that was sprayed last year so there's not realy much to do to get the railway working again. This morning I have made a start on removing the soil from the back corner of the garden. I have an idea of building a low wall to create a raised flower bed that is well away from the railway line. The area between the railway and the wall will be graveled and will give me better access for maintaining the line. This is the area im working on..



The concrete bridge that I made three years ago has split where the deck joins the abutments so im thinking of rebuilding this bridge using foamex…

 

This is the origanal track base and as you can see its in pritty good shape considering that its nearly four years old..



You can clearly see the two part construction used as the mortar for the track bed had pushed the shuttering out slightly. The concrete base that it sits on is about a foot deep…

















 

 

great to see the garden railway being brought back to live mate. I am sure with the weather we have at the mo and your good skills it will be back to normal in no time.

Phill

Ps we could all come to yours for a show next year and help you rebuild it mindue, :thumbs

This afternoon I decided to do somthing a bit more drastic and scrap the rockery! This was brought about for a couple of reasons one being that every time I switched on the pump for the waterfall the water dissapeared. After a bit of investergation I found the leak but to rectify the problem I needed to take the waterfall to bits. Consiquently this ment removing a lot of the plants so I figured that it would be a good time to start again.





I did take the opitunity to dig out the big dock leaf tree that kept sprouting in the middle of my alpines!





The damaged bridge that crossed the pond also went the journey



Today also saw some major work carried out on the viaduct as closer inspection of the damage caused by all that snow revieled that the mortar had come away from the concrete base. As I want to build a waterfall round the viaduct I thought that it would be a good idea to fix the trackbed using resin.

 

So first I removed the front cover and then all the mortar from the track







Note the rubber blocks embedded into the concrete



A clean up with a brush and an old vac cleaner





Then came the resin







There is still quite a bit of repair work to do to the viaduct but at least I have made a start.

 

You don't muck about, do you Dave?  It's worth the effort.  I remember this layout in its glory days.  Keep postin'   :thumbs

Looking at some of those shots Dave, you wonder where the limit is for streamline track.  Inside, we tweak a bit here and smooth a bit there whilst you attack it with a b###dy great hammer and still it survives !!!!

Maybe "00" in the garden isn't such a daft idea afterall…………….:hmm

Great to see the line back again Dave.

It's like discovering buried treasure.

Oh my gosh!!!

Am I ever glad my scenery doesn't grow!  

That is a lot of work Dave!

My heart goes out to you.

Wayne

Who needs dogs!!!

Dave with Strimmer, shovel and hammer.

Just the same but doesn't shed!

You go mate, looking forward to seeing the garden railway back to its former glory.

Well so much for doing anything more with the garden railway this year.  With all the prep for the YMR show + a couple of exhibitions with potters lane the garden railway has taken a back seat again. A couple of months after the episode with the strimmer the weeds grew back again although when I was away enjoying myself in Cornwall my mrs had a go at 'nukin' the garden with weed killer. She also chucked out a lot of the junk that I had stashed away outside so I suppose at least it saved me a trip to the tip! :roll: Hopfully by the end of Oct we will know what is happening with regards to Rachel's job as thanks to the clowns in goverment there are more cutbacks being made with council jobs and hers could be one of them. If that is the case then it will be game over for the garden railway as her wages pay the mortgage and without them we will be in the you know what!! Idealy I would like Rach to stay where she is as she has worked hard to become PA to the general manager and I would also like west coast to take off to boost my part time asda income so that we can have a life again and I can finish this blooming garden railway!  :thumbs  

Hi Dave, i now what it must be like regards to Rachel's job as i also work for the council i have done for 14 years now and i always thought that it would be a job for life ,i have now been told due to cut backs i might have to reapply for my job :shock: 

Fingers crossed for Rachel's future Dave

Darren NSE DAZ

Just posting some images that I did a while back for the heatherburn website as I want to check the gallery for a new member who is having problems…..













 :thumbs

Well that worked OK so there nothing wrong with the gallery. ;-)

Hi Dave, i now what it must be like regards to Rachel's job as i also work for the council i have done for 14 years now and i always thought that it would be a job for life ,i have now been told due to cut backs i might have to reapply for my job :shock: 

Fingers crossed for Rachel's future Dave

 

Same for you Darren. :thumbs

You sometimes think there's no justice in this world Dave.  As if you haven't had enough to worry about over the last couple of years and now this.

I really hope Rachel's job is OK.  We all know West Coast is "up and running" - it's just a matter of how far it's "up" I suppose.  It would be great to end up with Rachel safe in her job and you churning out West Coast stuff as fast as you could go.  You'd still have to take a break to run the modules at the next show. :roll:

Fingers crossed for you both. :thumbs

Cheers mate. :thumbs