New crane ..

The engineers check out a new arrival, this time for the works train - a nice little crane from the LGB ToyTrain range...

track cleaning loco - new 'grinding' wheels

Little maintenance job this weekend, fitting new 'grinding' wheels to my LGB track cleaning loco; its a fiddly job to get the cleaning motor section out, but once done it is easy to swap out the 'grinding' wheels

A quick ziz with some power to make sure I hadn't pulled off a wire - all was ok

New Toy Train...

My new toy arrived today - a LGB Harlequin Toy Train starter set, I bought this set as it has a battery loco operated  using a remote control - ideal to plonk on the tracks with a small train of an evening when you don't fancy spending time cleaning the track. The remote control can trigger four sound effects including a chuff and a whistle.

Out of the box and a quick play to get used to the remote control

 couldn't resist trying it out on my garage layout for a short while

The new items will be repainted and have new couplings so they can be used with my existing rolling stock. The two wagons will become part of the permanent way train - in the same range there is a small crane - will have to put that on my future purchase list :)

Back on track ...

Quite literally 'back on track' - had a blitz today on track refurbishment, cleared off my wargame table and setup for action.

After a couple of hours finished cleaning about 40 track sections and added new track joiners, hoorah finally finished - all the track stacked up on shelves above my garage layout - ready to be laid outside.

Not idle outside either - engineers arrive to check progress on clearing the site of the first part of the trackbed...

Placing the buildings ...

Managed to get a little extra planting done this weekend, and did a first placement of most of  the buildings - which helps the garden look less bare too.

---oXo---

Plan to have the main town by the path with the railway running behind the houses, the main station will be one the right of the town.

The railway will run in front of the windmill and house, then loop round past the signal box and into the main station

 On the other side opposite the rockery, ther will be a small village and a little station there as well,

I have a few station buildings and bits of platform in store which will go into position later; as I lay the track down I may have shift the planned location of things a bit.

Rockery initial planting ...

Not much progress to report on the track laying front (due to me having some muscular problems in my shoulder and neck over the last couple of weeks), however recently have got some initial planting done in the rockery. A nice little Acer in the middle at the back and some alpines round the front.

'token' track in place ...

This weekend, spent a little time finishing off the rockery, I got a spare piece of track out of the garage and placed it (temporarily) in the trackbed trench, nice to have some track in place....

 

A nice splash of colour in one of the borders - the iris's are out and in full bloom,