THE FIRST YEAR OF THE UPPER QUINTON RAILWAY

Or

GARDEN RAILWAYS DON’T HAVE TO COMPLETELY BREAK THE BANK

A couple of years ago I was considering the possibilities of adding a railway to my garden so I paid a visit to one of the top specialist shops in the country. I was vastly impressed with the items on sale and the staff were helpful and friendly but there was a major problem. While talking through what was required my mental calculator was whizzing round – Locomotives from £250 to over £1,000, wagons over £50, coaches over £100, £300 to £400 for the track I required with no points and £250 for a control system. It seemed that an investment of many thousands was required just to get started and the garden railway idea was quietly put to one side. 

The situation changed when my wife unexpectedly bought me a Lehmann toy train diesel loco for my birthday. This is not a highly detailed model but it did look quite cute in the garden. Of course once you have a loco you have to get just a bit of track for it to sit on and here I had a piece of luck. My local model shop had just received a quantity of second hand Aristo-craft track so I bought a couple of pieces straight away. Back home a bit of analysis work was carried out (on the internet) as I had never heard of Aristo-craft and I  was not familiar G gauge track in general. The price of the track was good compared to new. The quality looked fine and although it was not flexible I could see that removal of a few screws and ties between the sleepers would make it so. I decided this track was an opportunity too good to miss so the next day I went back to buy some more track. All of the straights had already been sold leaving a selection of various curves so I bought everything that was left. This turned out to be a real bargain as I had now got nearly all of the track I needed for about £80. To complete the dumbbell circuit I had to purchase the last 15 feet of track at normal prices - £36.

Another bit of luck around this time was an article in the Railway Modeller showing that G scale track can be just laid down on the ground with wooden blocks at intervals and fine grit to hold it in place. So the track was laid using the techniques described which is much cheaper and quicker than laying a concrete base. A year on everything seems to be holding together well. A forty year old H&M Duette was pressed into service for power supply so I was up and running at a fraction of the original costs.

Of course just one engine was never going to be enough so I now had my eyes open for other stock. The Warley National exhibition turned up a bargain in the shape of two Lehmann toy train coaches at £12 each so now I had my first train but I had now become keen to get some models of American diesel locomotives. A bit of searching on the internet and a few phone calls found some second hand items and so my Christmas present was a USA Trains SD40 which looked virtually unused but with a slightly tatty box costing under £200. I had also picked up a couple of Bachmann wagons second hand at a reasonable price.

The railway had received many good comments from visitors over the Christmas break so I was now keen to extend a little and to obtain some stock to go with the American diesel. Another bit of luck came my way in the shape of an unexpected bonus from work in February coinciding very nicely with a good dollar exchange rate.  I bought the exact wagons I wanted to go with the SD40 from a shop in the USA and some track on ebay, again from the USA. This worked very well as I got exactly what I wanted and it cost less than it would have in the UK but be warned that postage is very, very expensive and you usually have to add 17.5% VAT to the total cost including postage and the postal company will charge you £8 for collecting the VAT from you.

Things were going well but there was still a problem with power supply as the poor old Duette was just not designed for the amperage requirements of the USA Trains diesel. Again searching on ebay proved useful and a very good power source was obtained for £25 together with a somewhat aged potentiometer for £6.50. Although crude, I now had a power system that was able to cope with the current levels required.

So in less than a year, with a bit of good fortune and for under £1,000 I had the garden railway which I thought was out of reach. This is still a substantial amount of money but it shows what can be done if you look around and buy carefully.