Really good to see the progress, I hope you'll be able to solve the problems.

Its a great start looking forward to the finish product. I would have suggested using garden bender boards and stakes prior to pouring the concrete as it would easier to maintain a steady slope and level from side to side. Also you could use a small piece of wood with the roadbed pattern you want to scrape of the concrete on the top.

Proper civil engineering! there is a great Railway Modeller article by a guy called Bryan Birchell who had a OO garden railway in Daventry and he goes into great detail about using concrete as a track bed, worth reading if you can find it, Peco published in one of their leaflets as well.

That is looking amazing Jenny, well done.

The overbridge is going to look good. When you lay the track you may have to come out a little further. Great work so far. Real graft as you say doing all the groundwork.

It will be rewarding when it's done! Starting to get there!

Really is hard work I feel for you. Wish I knew you were in Oswestry I only live ten minutes away I would have come and said hello.

Good work Jenny, looking great so far. Hope your back's not hurting too much after all that digging & concrete laying (par for the course i guess,but worth it in the end).

Wow! Getting a lot of work in before winter. Snow in NYC tomorrow :( :( :( The DCC decoders should have a Back EMF feature that will compensate, at least partially, for your grade problem.

Looking great. Now you're suffering the problems encountered 200 years ago when railroading was rocket science. The soil looks like you're in for a very nice garden.

Hi Jenny good stuff! Because of your garden railway, I had a play on my friends garden railway and it is a lot of fun. I have made a little taster vedoe for you on my channel . Cheers Jaco

Thank you for sharing

I made my Small O Gauge Garden layout with 6' radius curves, as I had problems with set track radius. It now works fine. Hope you manage to sort it out Jennie.

Hi Jenny! None of your subscribers have any doubt you will conquer any issues. I like to call it one of the great conundrums of model railroaders: We design in our minds that which we desire, then deal with the design pitfalls as we attempt to create our vision. As I have often told people just entering the hobby: It is your railroad. It is your world to create. So forget the naysayers (and there are many). Do it your way. I do, however, agree with Kettenhund 31. With those gradients, you will have to manage the throttle up and down grade. It will be very hard to just sit and watch. Possibly someone out there has designed a system that will automatically do that for you without going to DCC. Enjoy your gin and tonic!

So admire your work, it really isn't easy, is it. But I know you will succeed in anything you want to do. Loads of respect Rodge David Kidderminster UK 😀

With those gradients, Jenny, you're going to have to drive the trains... Which is actually fun. I doubt if sitting back and just watching will be an option. I did American 'O' for about thirty years and came back to British OO a few years ago for precisely the reasons that you outlined in this video. Incidentaly I used to run large 2-8-0's around 3'9" radius track (and on a 1 in 33 grade) but they didn't look right so please think really carefully about tight curves. 'O' is fantastic but it really does need space. All the best, Ken.

That looks pretty impressive!

Hey Jenny, it's looking like you've got a mini Crossrail project going on in your garden! I hope it doesn't go as much over budget and timescale as Crossrail though :) Can't wait to see trains running around the garden again - do you think services will be in operation by Christmas?

I could never have an outdoor railway setup myself. The slugs and I'm a Manchester City fan.

Maybe and end to end layout design is required? Six foot radius is really the minimum for o gauge to look right. I prefer an elevated track using steel posts ( easy to get scrap lengths with galvanised round posts the ideal) to minimise the problems of being close to the ground. I am using no timber on the track I am constructing.

Great video dude keep it up

any updates on video , just what video i been looking for .

What track are you using

A bit worried about your gradients Jennifer. I've built my garden railway completely on the level just to take that potential problem away altogether. Suppose this is just like building the real thing eh? Didn't stop the Victorians! You'll get there in the end.

I was going to say that white glazed material looks like part of a Belfast sink. Shame it got smashed. Worth a few good pennies now.

it will be better and better -:)

14 NOV 2018 @ 23,52 GMT Dear Ms. Kirk: As a suggestion, download and install the _Simple Computer Aided Railway Modeller_ "SCARM" at www.scarm.info/index.php. I have successfully used this software package to design several HO and N layouts for friends & clubs. Using their O-gauge track library you will be able to see your garden railway in 3D and also calculate gradients to ensure manageable ruling grades. The strength here is to discover problems in 3D, then alter the layout's design to correct the problems. Repeating this _2D-design:3D-test:2D-redesign_ iteration cycle will result in nearly trouble-free construction. Additionally, when you've completed the design, you can print out a 1:1-scale series of overlapping pages of the layout, tack the pages down on your baseboard, and lay your track down onto the printed outline of the design. A feature possibly not useful for your garden railway, but certainly for indoor railways. Also, if you haven't already done so, I suggest purchasing a set of O-gauge _"Radius Tools."_ For your subscribers who are unfamiliar with these tools, they allow installation of curved flex-track at a constant, fixed radius and avoid accidental suboptimal radius _"kinks."_ Finally, have you purchased _"Curved Turnouts"_ for sidings and industrial spurs? *Good Luck!* _Disclaimer: I am only a USER of SCARM. I have no professional connection to the programmers._

I think it's common to underestimate the space needed for an imagined layout. I know I did.

☺ 👍

Building Garden railway 🚃

Hi Jenny, may I offer some advice (without stepping on your toes)? I am a professional custom model railroad builder in the US and built quite a few garden layouts, some even including water features. One problem I see with your approach is that it seems to me that the soil is not really compacted. This could result in cracking concrete subroadbed once the whole layout starts to settle. Once the concrete starts cracking, weeds may start to grow and worsen the cracks, since you don't seem to have a weed barrier under your roadbed. Again, not being critical here, just speaking from experience. Building a garden layout is - as you already experienced - a ton of hard work and actually requires some civil engineering. If you're interested in how I take on such a job, feel free to visit my portfolio page on my website here: farbeyondrails.net/north-carolina.php. My contact information is also on the website, in case you might have questions. Good luck with your project! Erhard