Still steaming....

Looking at my previous post on the BLL life all seemed quite normal in the world of garden railways - but in the past 14 days how times have changed. But let's not dwell on that, let’s try and be a bit more upbeat and search for that light at the end of our particular tunnels!!

Since last week I made an offer to the Secretary of the South Devon Garden Railway Group (SDGRG), based at Buckfastleigh.

My offer is … if Members would like to make use of my Blog during this crisis & lockdown to share information/pictures, then please do so.

It can be your railway or railway projects you have in hand or indeed commenced since that virus hit us; wish to exchange, sell or buy (deals to be completed after current restrictions lifted of course) then I would be more than happy to add that to my Blog.

I appreciate our Group does have an excellent website, but this offer may take some of the pressure off the website and indeed be an addition to information sharing on our hobby.

[I recently received correspondence from the Somerset GRG and they are carrying out a similar initiative at this current time].

By no means am I an Internet expert,(well you can see that!) but I can add pictures and words - providing you supply them! Not too long please and pictures should be maximum of two per insert, minimum of 300Kb in JPEG format. Our Secretary has sent you (SDGRG Members) my contact details.

A potted BLL history: ‘Our’ line commenced building in February 2019 after taking up the 16mm hobby in October 2018, that was after visiting the Talylln Railway in Wales and being amazed at the ‘Llechfan GR’. - we were both sold on the idea of garden railway’s.

We are fortunate enough to have garden space to build our own, but at the outset we decided we didn’t want it to take over the garden, but compliment it. 

Not really having any previous experience (apart from being a ‘Stoker’ in the Royal Navy for 10 years, does that count?) we again decided that we ‘would just go for it’. So no particular theme has been included i.e our line is not based on any real life railway anywhere, and I make no apologies for that. What we have tried to do is introduce some of our own life history into the layout, which is why you will see ‘flashes’ from our past built into the site! (Not a lot here then!).

We now have 34 metres of single 32mm track with one 3m and one 1m siding. A further siding of 4m is in the planning stage.

Current project is a Fire Training Tower (see previous Blog posts) to go astern of the Fire Station, however to complete this I really need to practice my soldering (non) skills!

So I look forward to sharing this Blog with fellow members - but hopefully not for too long!!!!!!

Running yesterday on the BLL

Pictured above is ‘Pheonix’ my only working Mamod (I now have three!!), which Ken in Taunton will recognise. I just managed to have her complete 11 laps of the BLL with the load seen in the picture (The second Mamod seen behind ‘Pheonix’ is not steaming).

‘Pheonix’ is a manual and completed those circuits with only two tweaks of the regulator!!! How good was that for this novice.

Take Care - Stay Safe - Keep Your  Distance