I've always hankered after a garden railway if I'm honest - I started my railway modelling with a classic Hornby HST 00 Train Set in the early eighties - it lived in the spare bedroom at home and many hours were enjoyed watching it chasing its tail around a 8 foot by 3 ft board - however teenage years and work brought other things into focus (or out of focus if you include a love of real ale!) so it wasn't until my mid twenties when my own house, an empty loft and a trip to north wales identified a love of narrow gauge and 009 modelling - a 30ft long end to end quarry to town set up was established and this lasted till a move from Yorkshire to Kent with work put a stop to that. I sold my line and all the stock to the 009 society and retired from modelling again.
It seemed that was it - until the death of my father from pancreatic cancer nearly 4 years ago - it happened very quickly for dad going from symptoms to the end in a matter of two months but I was fortunate to spend some time with him, help get his affairs in order and talk to him in a way we hadn't really before that point. It made me think about a few things:-
a) dad loved his railways - he never was modeller but he enjoyed seeing the real thing and anything train related - he always would have liked his own railway whether it be in the loft, spare room or garden - thinking back I remember visiting model towns and us watching the trains running through the towns - and us both really liking that sight
b) railways helped dad - the social interaction of getting out, visiting railways and watching trains at the likes of Doncaster and Warrington had helped dad after a hard period in his life - mum said that it was the thing that had got him back to his old self and she never begrudged him time going of "spotting"
c) I liked railways and I wanted a garden railway - it was one of the things I wanted to do - to be fair until that point, I always had it as one of the things I'd wait till retirement to do do but dad's passing had a profound effect on me - it had shown that you do things that you want, when you want to do it and not wait - you might not get there!
So, armed with a number of Dad's train possessions as inspiration, I started to investigate a number of railways via Youtube, their websites, the 16mm society page as well as the Model Railway TV's - Building a Garden Railway series with Mark Found.
Duly inspired I started to draw up plans for how to bring 16mm to my garden - visit the Current Line page to see what's happened so far.
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