Where Do I Begin?

I've decided to lay the double track section on the right-hand side of the garden first and to start at the top of the garden. The outer curve will be made up of 6 radius 5 curves. The inner curve will be made of flexi-track.
The photo shows my giant homemade compass. At the centre it pivots around a tent peg. At the outer end I've drilled two holes the same diameter as a pencil - one at the inner track radius and the other at the outer.

Homemade Compass

The second photo is of the template I've made for bending the inner track rails.

Track Template

I've started stripping down and cleaning the flexi-track from the Sandwell Valley Railway.

All I need now is to borrow a rail bender.

Incorporating of a Stream and a Pond

Neither my wife nor I could decide exactly where the quarry branch should be located. We also hadn't incorporated in the garden design a couple of our original wants, namely a pond and a stream.

Recently we were sunbathing in the garden when our eyes were drawn to a slight natural depression in the lawn and she suggested that it might be the ideal location for a pond and rockery.

Immediately my mind went into overdrive. Could the rockery house the quarry. Would it be possible to run a line around the pond? What a great video location it could be. How could I incorporate a stream? I had always liked the idea of having a line running on bridges over a stream and the design so far had no stream and no bridges.

This is what I've come up with. It's very rough and nothing like a scale drawing - the line would be much longer than shown. Not only would it break up the large lawn area, it would be a much more scenic route for the quarry line and add another diorama with great video potential.

I'm not sure about the triangle as quarry traffic would I assume all go in the same direction along the branch, i.e. to the main line, but I think it would look nice.

The Quarry Branch

The Garden - Just Add Track

These photographs were taken on Sunday 24th May 2020 before work on the Wychbold and Stoke Prior Light Railway had begun.

The first photograph shows the part of the garden where the railway will run. The shed in the bottom right was temporarily relocated onto the lawn when the building work was being done. That will be moved to the far right-hand corner before track laying. The hose pipe shows the approximate route that the railway will take on the right-hand side of the garden.

The area that the Wychbold and Stoke Prior Light Railway will cover

I intend to start track-laying on the right hand side of the garden. The railway will run between the lawn and the planted border. This will be double track. The Salt Works Sidings will be located where the line veers away from the border in the foreground of this photo. Stoke Works Station will situated be a little further along the line roughly in front of the ceanothus. As the garden is quite large I aim to use curves of radius 5 or larger.

The right-hand side of the garden

Stoke Prior Station will be sited at the top of the garden on the far side of the summer house. This will end the double track section and will be where the single track branch line starts.
The summer house is not long for this world. It will be demolished when the site is needed for the railway. Behind where the summer house is currently situated will be a woodland area which will provide a backdrop for the line. This will be the steepest gradient on the line.

The top of the garden

The single track branch line will meander down the left-hand side of the garden. Midway will be Wychbold Station. The line to the quarry will be located somewhere along the branch line. The exact location will be determined once we've decided on the planting.

The left-hand side of the garden

Those of you who remember the Sandwell Valley Railway will recall that my garden shed had a station makeover. This is where I'm hoping to site my new shed. The shed will be 16' x 8'. Half will be a shed and half will be a waiting room, and yes, it will look like a station building complete with platform and ramp.

Proposed site of shed

I've now started the laborious process of sorting out all of my track and cleaning it.

Track sorting

A New Railway

We moved house in April 2017. Having said that I did not want a project, that’s exactly what we bought - a small bungalow built in 1960 in need of complete modernisation and extension, but having a large reasonably level garden - ideal for a garden railway. Unfortunately the garden had been largely neglected.

The plan was to buy the property and decide what we wanted to do with it while still living in our old house. It didn’t work out that way. We only had two weeks overlap so ended up living in a property that wasn’t really fit for human habitation.

Following the building work we’ve been in residence in our new home for just over two years and although the decorating isn’t finished we decided that this year would be the year of the garden, and hopefully the new railway.

Decisions Taken Before Track Laying

1. First and foremost having a well-designed and beautifully planted garden is more important to us than having a railway. We aim to create a garden that can be enjoyed by all, not just railway enthusiasts, a garden which is a real pleasure to sit in and relax in.  What we’re aiming to create therefore is a garden with a railway, not a garden railway. Having said this the garden will obviously be railway themed. The raised beds are being made from sleepers and the sheds will be painted to look like station buildings, signal cabins and plate layers huts.
2. Obviously the railway should complement and enhance the garden and should be well integrated into it. This means that the railway must be at ground level. When I’m too old to operate a ground level railway I will take it up, sell everything and find a new hobby.
3. I rarely ran anything on the Sandwell Valley Railway (SVR) purely for pleasure. The railway was my film set where I created my videos. I learned my trade from the Pine Tree Junction Film Unit and tried (but didn’t always succeed) to keep the house, sheds, fences and anything else that stuck out like a sore thumb out of frame. The track on the new railway will be laid well away from any structures which would look incongruous when filming.
4. I’ve chosen a name for the new railway. I’ve always loved the name of the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Light Railway. What a wonderful name. In my mind it conjures up an image of a little used country railway running through quintessential English countryside with tiny stations serving sparsely populated villages with very little passenger traffic but in its heyday providing an essential means of moving farm produce and livestock. I now live in Stoke Prior, a village on the outskirts of Bromsgrove and near to the village of Wychbold. So the name I’ve chosen is the Wychbold and Stoke Prior Light Railway (WASP).
5. My favourite garden railways are the ones that as based on British narrow gauge lines such as the Leek and Manifold Valley, the Welshpool and Llanfair, The Welsh Highland and the Lynton and Barnstable, and I have collection of locomotives and rolling stock suitable for this type of railway. However having a narrow gauge line doesn’t lend itself to storytelling whereas a line populated by Thomas and his friends does. So my new railway will have to be a compromise. It will have both double track and single track sections and hopefully the single track section will double as either a British narrow gauge line or an Island of Sodor branch line.
6. This is an opportunity to reflect on what worked well on the SVR and what didn’t. I liked the rockery with the tunnels through it, the pond with the bridge over it, the over bridge by the station and of course the viaduct with its under arch bridge. I would like to incorporate similar features into the new railway, and I would also like a stream. I really like the idea of the single track section gently meandering next to the stream and occasionally crossing over it. I can already picture the video opportunities.
7. The nearest station to our new home was Stoke Works station which opened in 1852 on the GWR Stoke Branch which provided a link between the Midland Railway Birmingham to Bristol main line just to the North of the station, with the GWR's 'Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Branch'. The station served the nearby salt works. The station closed in 1965. Obviously one of the stations on the WASP Light Railway will be named Stoke Works and it will serve the nearby Salt Works Sidings.

Provisional Track Plan and Station Layouts

General Layout of the Railway in the Garden

The Quarry

Stoke Prior Station where the brach line starts

Salt Works area on the main line

Wychbold Station on the branch line

I'm hoping to start laying track later in the year.

Thomas Runs Away

Thomas is in need of an overhaul so he is towed to the railway workshop. After a few weeks he comes back as good as new, well not quite . . .

This adventure of Thomas and his friends was filmed at Pine Tree Junction by the Pine Tree Junction Film Unit. Is was edited and narrated by me. I also wrote the screen play and did all of the special effects, like making Harold fly. The characters were voiced by the children of family and friends.

Thomas Runs Away Trailer

This is a lockdown (due to the COVID-19 virus epidemic) video project being filmed in collaboration with Pine Tree Junction. The story is based on The Runway, a story by Christopher Awdry from his book More About Thomas the Tanks Engine which was first published in Great Britain in 1986. Filming took place during April 2020 and the video should be uploaded to my YouTube channel sometime in May.

Meanwhile here is a short video trailer.

PS News about the planned development of my new garden railway will be posted later this month.