Sagina Subulata - Heath Pearlwort

Sagina Subulata or Heath Pearlwort is a low-growing, bit of a grass like, green staying perennial plant that makes a 5 cm. thick, dense mat with little white flowers (4–5 mm diameter). Its flowering from May to August. It can make a lawn or it can be used on smaller spots to fill up. It can handle dry sandy or gravelly soils. Because of the small flowers and leaves it never looks out of scale and can be used in foreground landscape details.

 

Flowering Heath Pearlwort, May 2019

May 2019

Heath Pearlwort looks nicely in scale between Thyme (top) and Soleirolia. May 2019

It easily covered the side track. May 2019

A bed of Heath Pearlwort, just before bloom early May 2019

"Narrow Gauge In The Garden" video series

An other 'classic' series of videos that can be found on YouTube is "Narrow Gauge In The Garden" presented  by Ian Stock and filmed by Mark Found, who later produced the television broadcasted series "The Garden Railway".

Although this series is a bit dated and the HD quality not as good as we once thought it was it shows some really fantastic and atmospheric garden railways. I found it very inspiring and got a lot of ideas from it. In each episode a different garden layout is visited and a specific topic is discussed. The focus is on UK theme narrow gauge railways.

The series can be found on YouTube on The Railway Channel but I also made a summary below with direct links. Needless to say that the one about small gardens is my favorite!

Narrow Gauge In The Garden

Small Gardens
Large Gardens
Difficult Terrain
Layouts
Horticulture
A visit to the Roundhouse factory
Photography
Cwmcoe
Tarren Hendre
Weathering Part I
Weathering Part 2

"The Garden Railway" television series by Mark Found

On YouTube there are a lot of video's about garden railways. Some better than others.

A very interesting series of videos in my opinion is "The Garden Railway" made by Mark Found for broadcasting on television on the Discovery Channel. I believe it actually came out on DVD in 2001 as well. It can be considered a real classic by now!

In 15 episodes from about 23 minutes each it describes the build of a garden railway from start to finish in a clear and often funny way of presentation. It is an introduction to the hobby which mention most basic steps of building a layout and what techniques can be used.

In each episode garden railways from other modellers are visited which provide some beautiful scenes and a lot of inspiration.

The whole series can be found on the YouTube channel ModelRaiwayTV but I have made a little summary below with direct links to the episodes.

The Garden Railway episodes:

 1 Design

 2 Earthworks

 3 Water features

 4 Rockery

 5 Track Bed

 6 Bridges

 7 Track Laying

 8 Power

 9 Control

10 Shed

11 Models

12 Buildings

13 Horticulture

14 Maintenance

15 Finale

October 2018 - video and some pictures

October 2018

A little video and some pictures of how the railway looked like in October 2018.

Getting started; beware!

I you never have had a garden model railway it is wise to consider some things before you get started (or shortly after):

- Time
- Money
- Operation

Time 

Plants taking over
(picture from my old railway)

Time is for some a fire in which they burn and for others an ocean to swim in.
If you would like to start a garden railway and you don't have much time to spend on it; keep it small and simple!
Only if you have plenty of time you can consider a bigger garden railway. Garden railways can be very time consuming. Other than indoor railway layouts the maintenance of an outdoor layout is significant. Leaves and branches on the tracks, garden plants taking over, turnouts that need to be clean, little critters attacking your buildings, rain showers that cause floods and winter frost heeves that can cause damage. Do not under estimate this. The bigger the railway, the more work there is!
Keeping a railway small and operations simple can reduce maintenance and time.

Money

Garden railways don't have to be expensive! True; if you like a full scale Orient Express with live steam engine and 12 coaches running through a large layout you will have to able to spend a lot of money. But I have seen beautiful layouts that vary between dirt-sheep ones and some unbelievable expensive. You CAN build a nice layout on a small budget for sure!
I think you have to find a balance between what you can (or want) to spend, what you like and again; the time you can spend!
For instance; personally I don't like the main stream and 'out of the box' trains so I am not tempted very easily to buy expensive models. I am a little bit handy and love to use my imagination so I bash or scratchbuild my models that are often based on secondhand stock bought from auction sites. With some skills you can make your own, unique, models and safe some serious money. Than again; building these models take more time than buying one. Balance is everything...

Operation

There are some main types of operation; track powered, battery powered, clockwork and live steam.

The most conventional is track powered; the trains run by electricity through the tracks like most model railways. This way it is also possible now-days to digital control your railway by using decoders and stuff. The downside in my humble opinion (based on years of experience on my old railway) is that track power ALWAYS cause problems. Even the best perfect laid track eventually will show problems due to the fact the track is outside and under influences of moisture, temperature changes and dust. You have to maintain and clean the tracks almost constantly to ensure some smooth running but often you will face problems. This is actually one of the biggest frustrations of garden model railways.

The railbus is battery powered. RC controls came
from a cheap RC car toy.

This made me converse to battery powered trains. They will run undisturbed by dirty tracks and run smoothly even over not so perfectly laid tracks as well. Battery powered trains are often operated by radio control (RC), meaning that you have to build in a speed controller and receiver and you need a radio controller to operate the trains. In the past RC control was not a great solution because of interference disturbing the signal but since the 3,2 Ghz are on the market (for affordable prices) this problem is no longer an issue.

You can use common RC equipment you can buy in any hobby store (local or online). You can also experiment with (cheap) RC electronics that are used in remote controlled toys, like cars and boats. However these can cause interference problems and have a limited range. They will work well as long as you keep close to them. 
There are some companies that produce RC equipment especially for model railways as well. Off course you can also run battery powered trains without a RC unit; just letting it run its rounds. If you just enjoy seeing the train running through the garden this is actually a good option.

The oldest types are off course live steam and clockwork.  

Clockwork is not very common and only some collectors run old clockwork trains on their layout. Actually I only mention this type of operation te be complete ;-)

Live steam is a very beautiful way to operate the trains as the engines are powered by hot air like real steam engines. Most of these models now-days are gas fired engines. The trains are mostly RC controlled. However, this way of operation request some more work than the other types. It is not just place it on the tracks and play! You will have to fire up the steam engine for instance and you will have learn how to operate these trains. Also they need some more maintenance and care. Live steam models are by rule always expensive.

Constructing the railway I - planning and starting

Planning and starting!

In 2017 I started to construct a new garden railway layout in our backyard garden.

The first step was figuring out a track plan for the layout. This was a challenge as we just moved in to our new home and the garden was not very big. To be honest, it was in fact rather small.
The space available for a layout was about 1,60 by 6 meter. The limited space was however not a bad thing since my old garden railway had grown a bit too big and therefor became somewhat neglected and overgrown. The smaller the layout, the easier to maintain! But how can you make a small layout look interesting?

The idea

As I wanted a continuous run of trains an oval track plan formed the base of the plan. But a train just running around in circles is not very attractive to see.  It is more interesting to see a train come and go 'somewhere" out of sight. But how do you establish this in such a small space?

The solution I choose for this was the concept of 'scenic breaks' that is commonly used on smaller scale indoor layouts. Its a combination of planning the track and build the landscape scenery in such a way that the train comes in and goes out of sight as you observe it from a viewing position. You have to change your viewing position to see where it goes or to see another part of the layout. You can achieve this for instance by a hill with tunnel or placing a forest or buildings that blocks the view.
Also the height of the layout is of importance; scenery breaks are more difficult if you watch the layout from a bird eyes view than when you observe it from eye-height view.

The trackplan

The track plan I came up with was an oval with one long straight side. The other side (the front of the layout) has several bends as like the track is crawling along a hillside or following an imaginary river or something. The bends give opportunities for scenic breaks and the running of the train has become more interesting.