(If you’re racking your brains on that lyric, it’s The Cure, “It’s Friday I’m in Love.”)<\/p>\n
Well, this morning I woke up early. I won;t say bright and early as itwas
\nstill dark outside and my manner wasn’t bright either. In fact I drifted
\ninto wakefulness only realising I was awake after some time.<\/p>\n
I don;t know why, but it seems that playing with little Christopher and his
\ntrain set has rekindled my interest in model railways which has been domant
\nfor nigh on 20 years now. And it was a subject about which I had been dreaming,
\nnamely, building a garden railway in my back garden and all the complexities
\nof the engineering involved.<\/p>\n
As I lay there I could do nothing more than think of the way of building
\nsuch a thing based upon biulding my own pre-cast concrete viaduct sections
\nand the difficulties of making the foundations for the bases so that they
\nwere perfectly level and to a hieght tolerance of under a millimetre.<\/p>\n
Anyway, this is all dreaming as (a) it would cost a huge amount of money
\njust to buy the tools necessary and hire the digger, (b) I’d have to totally
\nredo my back garden, and (c) I’m not sure I have the skills to do the foundations
\nto the accuracy necessary. Oh, and then there’s the concrete cast moulds
\nto design and build.. which would require Norm Abram’s level of wood working
\ntools. In total, I’d guess the up-front tooling costs would be in the region
\nof around £2-3000 (bench saw, mitre box, jigsaw etc.) plus the hire
\nof a mini digger, surveying gear, laser levels plus the matterials. And this
\nis merely for the civil engineering to create the viaduct and embankment!
\n(There’s still the shed to enclose the electrical workings and to store the
\nrolling stock, the track bases, the wiring, track, scenic matterials and
\ncontrol systems to buy after that before the first train can run.) And after
\nthat I’d have to start on getting the garden into a good state again.<\/p>\n
I’d imagine, all in, to build the permanent way and get a running railway
\nwould probably cost in the region of £5-7000 before adding rolling
\nstock. Way out of my spending league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(If you’re racking your brains on that lyric, it’s The Cure, “It’s Friday I’m in Love.”) Well, this morning I woke up early. I won;t say bright and early as itwas still dark outside and my manner wasn’t bright either. … Continue reading