Railway Ramblings in a Yorkshire Garden

Martin Williamson

I blame my parents. I blame them in particular for one specific family holiday to North Wales, when I was allowed to escape from the usual itinery of visiting dusty stately homes, draughty old castles and paddling in Cardigan Bay, to spend a week as a volunteer on the Festiniog Railway. For five glorious days I wielded shovel and pick and joined a small gang maintaining the permanent way north of Tan-y-bwlch. To reach the site for each day’s work involved either hitching a lift with a normal service train, or a number of bone-rattling rides in a variety of open wagons and ganger’s trolleys. All of this, combined with the heady aroma of fresh creosote in the warmth of the sun and the incessant drone of bees busy in the line side gorse, left an indelible impression on a young teenager’s mind. I was well and truly hooked on the spell of the narrow gauge.

I also blame my father, for taking me into the shop at Portmadoc station and buying a couple of lengths of Peco 009 ‘Crazy-track’ and a few Eggerbahn wagons. That evening at the B & B, we spent hours sat at the dining table, constructing inclines from piles of well-thumbed paperbacks and ancient Readers Digests. Back at home I had a Hornby 00 trainset, but this was something different. I had been taken in by the lure of narrow-gauge modelling.

A few years later, as an apprentice engineer, I carefully saved up my wages and bought an elderly Landrover and a second-hand tent and, when my annual leave came round, disappeared to North Wales in search of further inspiration. I didn’t have to look far and after a week spent crawling all over the environs of Blaenau Ffestiniog and other locations, I returned home to begin yet another small-scale narrow gauge modelling project. But even after some 300 hours work on said project, it still didn’t quite hit the spot. I didn’t know quite what it was I wanted to achieve, but it had something to do with the atmosphere that surrounds the real thing, like an ethereal yet almost tangible mantle. Perhaps it lacked the creosote, the sun and the bees. Despite my best efforts, somehow this ‘atmosphere’ eluded my little models and ultimately I lost interest.

Something that did catch my interest however, were a number of articles in the model press at that time by Dave Rowlands, speaking in seductive wisps of real steam drifting through the buddleja and honeysuckle. At about the same time, A W Gibson showed that with a little magic, a few Mamod and Meccano parts and some offcuts of metal sheet, live steam engines resembling Linda and Blanche from the Festiniog Railway could be created, to run on 0-gauge track. Well that was it: I had to have a go. Over the next decade or so, in amongst becoming a husband, then a father, I dabbled with 16mm scale. I say ‘dabbled’ as that is the only real word for it: a guards van here, a half-complete steam engine there and no garden to run it in. I contented myself with an oval of old tinplate track in the attic until a house move four years ago finally realised a small back garden.

And so, after many pleasant hours spent ‘walking the route’ and sketching plans on backs of envelopes, October 2001 found me stood in the rain, cutting the first sod of my very own garden railway - the Cobbybrook Light Railway. To begin with I roughly staked out the route of the trackbed with bamboo canes and then decided on an operating height. Armed with a list of ‘don’t wants’, such as a railway on stilts, or disruption to existing garden features, I then fixed a datum level for the rail height and transferred this to wooden stakes driven at intervals along the marked route. I had read about various methods for doing this and I chose the ‘hosepipe technique’, mainly because I had to hand a length of semi-opaque flexible tubing that proved ideal. For those unfamiliar with the hosepipe technique, don’t worry, it isn’t painful! It simply makes use of the principle that water in a pipe with raised, open ends will find its own level, regardless of the position of the pipe. This means that a pipe can be laid across the garden, the ends raised and the pipe filled with water and the resulting water heights at each end indicating a true level from one location to the other. Obviously this is made much easier if the pipe or tubing is clear or semi-opaque, with the water level visible. Quite what the neighbours made of my strange antics, pacing backwards and forwards across our plot in the drizzle with wooden stakes, bamboo canes and a hosepipe, is debatable. Needless to say, the men in white suits and van never appeared so I think I got away with it!

Once some form of level has been set, the task was then to construct a suitable trackbed up to this datum. Again, I had read numerous articles on different construction methods, eventually choosing a solid base with flexible track screwed to this foundation and ballasted with a sand, cement and peat mix. Shallow footings were dug along the route and hard core, mixed with a little dry mortar, tipped in and consolidated (size 12 wellies came in very handy!). A low wall was then built up from this foundation, using left over stone blocks from our conservatory construction (my full-scale modelling project two years ago). These blocks were supplemented by a great pile of ‘artificial’ stone recovered from two rather hideous, seventies-style, rustic fire surrounds (you know the sort, with inserts for fish-tanks, drinks cabinets, TV sets, etc). The low wall that resulted formed either the edge of a raised growing bed, or was buried, depending on the surrounding ground level. Peco SM32 track was then laid and screwed into rawlplugs on the top surface of this wall, with slivers of wood to pack under the sleepers to correct any inaccuracies in the level (believe you me I needed plenty of these!). Finally, when all was running properly, ballast in the form of a mortar and peat mix was packed around the sleepers. This is best done by gloved hand, using your fingers to prod and press the mixture into place. There is plenty of time to scrape any excess off and clean up the rails afterwards, before everything sets solid.

At this point it is worth mentioning a few words about inclines and gradients. Originally, my intention was to produce as level a run as possible, as everything that I had read concerning the operation of manual live steam pointed towards this Utopian ideal. Unfortunately, due to some careless bricklaying in freezing cold conditions, I ended up with a bit of a hill. Well actually it is short stretch of about 1 in 40 and now named ‘Stonecrop Bank’. At first, when I realised the extent of the error, my immediate reaction was to demolish the offending section and rebuild. Tentative initial operations over the route, however, indicated that the problem wasn’t as bad as first thought and the bank was manageable - runaway Mamods excepted!. Trains approaching in an anti-clockwise direction tend to speed up briefly as they descend, before slowing into the bend, whilst trains running in a clockwise direction come out of the bend and then get stuck into the rising gradient. At this point my Mamod engine simply gets stuck, blows a rather rude raspberry and refuses to go any further, whereas my Mamod ‘tram’ conversion with geared drive trundles up the gradient without a murmur. My Roundhouse ‘Bertie’ sometimes pauses to raise pressure, but otherwise he digs his heels in and snorts up, especially if he has quite a load hanging on behind. The unintentional bank has added to the operational interest of the line, but still allows for ‘hands-free’ running when the desire is simply to sit with glass in hand watching the trains go by.

Mentioning the various running traits of some of the line’s locomotives leads nicely into a quick tour around the engine shed. There isn’t actually a proper engine shed on the line, only a shelf in my workshop, so we need to use a little imagination…Pride of the line has got to be ‘Bertie’, a product of the well-established Doncaster firm Roundhouse. ‘Bertie’ was a 40^th birthday present from my family this summer and has been a delightful addition to our roster. Resting patiently behind ‘Bertie’ is ‘Barbara’, a Mamod kit-built engine bought for me by (and named after) my dear wife, who indulges me in my love affair with garden railways. ‘Barbara’ the engine was built over ten years ago and has since been adapted and modified to resemble one of the early England engines from the Festiniog Railway. Hulking massively next to ‘Barbara’ is ‘Douglas’, affectionately nicknamed ‘Dumpy’ behind his back. ‘Douglas’ is a home built representation of the unsuccessful tram-type locomotive ‘Victoria’ that was ordered for the Plynlimmon and Hafan Tramway in mid-Wales. Underneath the huge body, a Mamod boiler and cylinder, a large flywheel, a handful of Meccano gears and four flanged wheels combine to make this contraption mobile. Lurking in the gloom and cobwebs at the back is a battered and rusty diesel, based on a 48hp Ruston diesel. In many ways, this rather sad looking engine is the most significant, being one of my first ventures into 16mm modelling over 20 years ago. Over time, various coloured paint jobs and layers of grime, grease, dust and oil have resulted in a model conveying a real honest, workaday history.

Rolling stock is currently a little thin on the ground, or should that be thin on the track? There is an old Tenmille kit-built Talyllyn brake van - another relic from my ‘dabbling’ days when I had various 16mm bits and bobs, but no where to run them. To complement this vehicle, I have recently finished constructing two of the Brown Marshall coaches from the same railway. These were built from cardboard and MDF for the princely sum of £5 (the cost of the spray paints!). The plastic wheel sets were picked up for a few pence at a model sale many moons ago and both vehicles have simple compensation to ensure trouble-free running. Two Festiniog Railway style quarrymen’s coaches complete the passenger stock. These are again of cardboard and wood construction, but without the compensated chassis (well they are for workmen!) they are prone to the odd derailment. Mineral and goods stock is minimal and comprises mainly of Coopercraft kit-built wagons. These have been heavily weathered and rattle along nicely behind the Ruston diesel. Finally, bringing up the rear is a model based on the Corris brake van. Built on a Mamod flat wagon chassis, the body was constructed from plywood and card and features a working sliding door. At one point in the dim and distant past, the chassis was dropped from a high shelf resulting in a slight bend to one of the wheel sets. In use, the brake van has a noticeable rolling gait that has really added to its character.

My first ‘proper’ year in this marvellous hobby has given me great pleasure and I have met many new friends through the Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers. Members regularly hold open days and visitors are encouraged to take locos and stock to run. At the moment, my line is simply a circuit around the garden, with a passing loop - there are still many quirks to sort out before I dare let anyone else run their prize locomotives on my little Yorkshire garden railway!