It’s over four months since that momentous day that track was first laid into the garden itself, being the reversing loop attached to a spur coming out of the undergarage window.

After much planning, I am now ready to extend further into the garden.

Here you see the plan of what is intended for the next phase.

The track bed will be supported on a combination of pillars and brackets. At the end, the reversing loop will be reattached, allowing a new, longer continuous run.

This design was arrived at following extensive review by the Auerbach and District Light Railway Engineering Board (Tom & Peter). This covered various topics, including how to cut the baseboards efficiently from the least amount of material, how to deal with the change in slope (since the railway has to follow a 1:32 drop to reach ground level eventually) and how to ensure that the baseboard is held securely.

There were several tests, including a load test of the brackets (28 kg of roofing tiles, hiding the bracket itself):

There was also an extenstive test of locomotives travelling at top speed across a sharp transition between horizontal and 1:25 down, and 1:25 up.

In the end, it seems that everything was ready for construction, so I bought the materials necessary to build the pillars and construct the baseboards.

The baseboard material came in quite large pieces (250cm x 125cm), so I gave the man at Bauhaus a detailed plan of how they should be cut up:

All successful, and here you can see the template built by Peter in place, showing where I need to cut the panel to the final shape for the R5 curved sections (don’t worry, I didn’t do the actual cutting in the living room!)

I am currently feverishly constructing baseboard modules, ready for Sunday when Tom and Peter will come down and we will actually begin construction of the extension.

Watch this space….