The Ribe Valley OO Gauge Garden Railway

My attempt at a garden railway. Sorry about the sound at the beginning, but it was fine before I uploaded it!

My goals in building a garden railway were:

a) To build a railway sympathetic to an already established garden.
b) To make it as low maintenance as possible, due to an already busy lifestyle.
c) To make a railway that I could just sit back and watch.
d) To be able to run Triang/Hornby locomotives with Class 2 + 3 motors, which I love.

To cover point a) I decided to build a railway/rockery hybrid, which I elevated from the floor to cut down the leaf litter and froglet trespassers on the line. I only have a couple of small, but sympathetic buildings on the railway as I feel stations, houses and people can sometimes look a bit tacky.

For point b) I built a robust and simple dog-bone loop using roof tiles, cement, hard soil, slate stone and chippings. I originally used fish tank gravel on the track bed, which I later removed as I found it was more of a hindrance than a benefit.

Point c) I kept it simple, but interesting, creating as many scenic views as I could fit into this small cramped area.

And point d) I did away with the few points I had planned, as the old Triang locos don't really like modern track, which I didn't mind as this also suited point c) as well. I just love Triang locos! A quick clean up of a loco that has been sitting in somebody's damp loft for the last thirty years and off they go! They are tough and nothing gets in their way. And their wheels don't seem to attract every bit of dirt like modern ones do. I have even run them on dirty track and they still run fine!



The trackwork is a bit eccentric in parts due to the small, cramped areas I had to work. But I think this makes it all the more interesting.




Copper grease has worked wonders with the rail joints and has kept them electrified, as I found soldering wires across the joints a bit too fiddly.

The name for the railway, I must confess, came from a Ribena bottle, which I saw whilst trying to think up a name and it just seemed right. Any resemblance to the Ribble Valley railway is purely coincidental! The tunnel by the pill box is know as Whetstone Tunnel, due to the constant wet weather of 2007, when I was soaked on many occasions whilst building the railway. I also have Horsteth Bridge, which was named after the Horse teeth I dug up whilst building the railway, which were subsequently reburied in this area.

Fictional history of the railway: (Okay I'm really sad!) The railway is an independent railway that was built in the mid 19th century to supply slate to the building industry, which is abundant in the area. During the two World Wars the railway was developed to transfer supplies for the war effort. This development resulted in increased and varied traffic, including passenger trains, which still continues to this day (I'll leave it up to you to decide when that is). The railway has its own fleet of small, but diverse, locomotives and is also visited by mainline trains on a regular basis. (I'm hard pushed to explain the two 1000ft palms in the middle of the railway or the presence of a vintage Trans-Continental diesel train though! The latter is again due to my love of Triang engines and I've always love this loco/train.)

There is still plenty to do and once it weathers it will look a lot more natural. The locos and stock I will have to weather myself!

Anyway, I hope you like it as much as I do. Should you wish to know more just ask.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• oo
• gauge
• garden
• railway
• Train
• model
• rail
• diesel
• loco
• locomotive
• steam
• layout
• Triang
• electric
• 4mm
• shunter
• shunters
• engine
• the
• ribe
• valley
• railways
• Hornby
• Lima
• battery
• batteries
• express
• oil
• tanker
• tank
• wagon
• coach
• coaches
• wheels
• slate
• scale
• bridge
• tunnel
• meteor
• Class
• 29
• Hymek
• 33
• Pannier
• wagons
• freight
• passenger
• pill
• box
• trans
• continental
• bonnet

[Madmanluke12]

I don't know anything about hornby trains but that is a really good track! One question, how does it still work even after leaving it outside in the rain?

[philquine]

@Madmanluke12 - Nickel silver track won't rust so that is fine outside. I put copper grease on the joints as well, which is conductive. You do have to give the rails a good clean each time you run it, but that doesn't take long. I find the old 'not so scale' locos and rolling stock work best, as they have larger and wider wheels.  It will have been outside for 4 years this year. I don't leave the locos and wagons outside of course. Cheers!

[CGRAY93]

whats the song

[philquine]

@CGRAY93 - It's Garry Numan - Tracks

[penninefilms]

Do you still have the layout in the garden or has it goon now

[philquine]

Hi, Yes it's still running fine for over three years. Cheers!

[grizzleybearz282004]

thats cool i know lionel did some OO gauge sets back in the 1930s they made a more then few of the scale nyc 4-6-4 hudson sets thats would be my favorte one if i had any OO i think you would like that they made them in 2 rail & 3 rail OO i collect 3 rail o gauge lionel train sets from the prewar postwar era are mine but i got some modern lionel sets for my kids

[busterbrown17]

Nice la out

[Xantec]

1:01, i swear the locomotive slammed the roof of the slate tunnel

[sundaydriverfromhell]

Perfect :)

[philquine]

@drwhotrainfan - Yes, I've got a few. Search for 'Ribe Valley Railway' and you will see them in some of the other videos.

[janiceandcliff]

Nice to see the old Tri-ang locos in action, well done.