'power' to the track (2) - control box

Have put the control box in place so I can run the feeds to the track. I re-used my old control box which was made from a green mailbox.

I had to be creative on making a stand for it and a rummage around yielded two offcuts of treated wood batton, a length of angle iron and a couple of suitable brackets.  The angle iron was knocked into the ground about 18ins to provide the main support - painted over quickly in wood stain - the rear view...

The control panel in the box has a connection for the feeds to the track from the controller and switches in place if I want to add control of the sections for the station main line, passing loop and siding.

'power' to the track (1)

Have started putting stuff together for getting 'power' to the track.  I've put in a weatherproof extension lead for summer use - with the flex going up to the lean-to under cover of gravel.

 Next getting ready for the power connections to the track, using some spare track I've made up two sections which will be swapped out with what is currently in place - these have the connectors to go to the controller - for these I used brass track connectors with solder tags.

 On the 'to do' list

• buy suitable cable and layout the lengths needed
• buy conduit/plastic pipe to hold the cable
• setup control box (saved from the old layout)
• solder cable to track and lay into the control box
• clean the track
• play with trains ---->  'toot - toot'

An update and a short running session ...

I had hoped to be running track powered locos by now, however the necessary works have not been done to bad weather, a badly sprained foot and two nasty bouts of flu.  I've only just caught up on the normal jobs in the garden.

The garden planting has matured nicely and the railway now looks like it belongs in the garden .....

Managed to get a nice little running session in a couple of days ago when I got home from work on a nice sunny evening

This years outdoor works will focus on getting setup to run track powered locos, on battery only at the moment.  I have to dig a couple of shallow trenches for wiring and power supply - hopefully I'll get this done before our clay soil turns to 'concrete' due to  the summer weather.

Some new tipper trucks ...

Nice find at a Toy&Train fair today - 3 LGB tipper trucks (at a nice price). Here they are getting a run on my garage layout

Need to do some work on them - a repaint and some work on the couplings. They can be part of my engineering train or a separate little mineral train.

End of running season ....

Well with the weather closing in its the end of the outdoor running season for me. I've been enjoying the weather and running my little trains around when I fancy.

---oXo---

During August I went round to a friend's for his garden railway open evening; had great time. My little train pottering round ...

 One of my friends trains ....

 I had to leave before seeing this rather long train running,

apparently 2 more wagons were added and two diesel locos to pull it.

---oXo---

All the final pruning and tidying of the garden is now done,  the grass/wild meadow centre did well giving us a lot of wild flowers. I managed to get the grass cut during last week, there are few small bald areas which can be sorted out next spring.

There are a few jobs to sort out on the railway. The main ones are positioning of the feeds for powering the track and levelling of the track.

Grass area maturing nicely ....

The grass area in the centre has come along nicely

 although the bottom part is a bit bare, some more soil/seed required here

 The wild flower mix has started to come through as well ...

Adding some wagon loads and a guard ...

 For my cattle van I put a couple of old Schleich cows onto a base and then put that in the cattle van; can only just see the cows through the gaps in the van.

 Next up were some removable wagon loads, I made up some bases from plasticard and scribed them,

 then painted them a light grey and glued on various items barrels, boxes etc to give me some loads I can now swap out of my wagons ...

 

Lastly I made up a narrow base of card painted it as close as possible to the guards van grey and stuck on a guard (Bachmann figure), the guard on his base can removed if desired