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"A brief history about myself and my garden railway"
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Growing up with the Inchicore Railway Works behind my house, I was always fascinated by the railway. As a young boy I would spend many hours sitting on the railway wall watching the trains pass by. Between passing trains there was always plenty of activity, with locomotives arriving and departing the running shed and the old Maybach shunting locomotives moving carriages and wagons around.
"The view from my bedroom window (mid. 70's)" "Click on this image for more on the Inchicore Railway Works"
My railway career starts......
In 1987 I started my railway career as an apprentice electrician in the Inchicore Railway Works. My first year of training was in the training school, but after this was completed, I worked in the many sheds and workshops within the complex, working on the locomotives and carriages. It was great to get the opportunity to work inside the sheds after years of looking over the wall.
"This is me as an apprentice working on 226"
My last two years of training were spent outside of Inchicore in various depots and sheds, but it was my final year of training in the Signal and Electrical (S&E) maintenance department that I really enjoyed. I started to learn a lot about maintaining signalling systems, both electrical and mechanical. When I finished my apprenticeship I worked in the S&E New Works section for four years installing new signalling equipment around the country, before returning to the S&E maintenance department where I'm still working today.
"Installing new track circuits in 1992"
My interest in railways expanded over the years and I collected a lot of old railway memorabilia and built a small OO scale train layout. When I got married and bought my own house I had planned to build another OO scale layout in the spare bedroom. However as the years rolled by and my two children came along the model railway was put on hold.
The beginning of the Barna Railway......
During the Summer of 2006 I decided to start planning my new railway layout. Finding space wasn't easy, the spare bedroom wasn't an option now and the attic was converted so this was out. I quickly realised that there wasn't enough space left indoors so I looked to the only available space left, the back garden.....!
I knew nothing about building a model railway in the garden so I did a bit of research on the internet and found plenty of useful information. I was still thinking of using OO scale models but after seeing an LGB G-scale garden railway video on the internet I knew that this was the scale for me. LGB models are built to a scale of 1/22.5 and run on a 45mm gauge track. LGB (Lehmann Gross Bahn) models are produced in Nuremberg Germany and are built to a very high standard. I decided to use LGB for all track work, locomotives and rolling stock.
July - October 2006 design and planning......
Building a garden railway requires a lot of planning, I needed to work out where the line would go, the natural gradients of the garden, and the size of the curves. To help in the design and planning stage I purchased 4 curved sections of track and two straight sections, which I placed around the garden in different locations to give me an idea of how it would look.
October 2006 construction begins......
After deciding on the final route around the garden, construction of the track bed began on the 10th of October 2006. The weather was nice and dry so I managed to get a lot of work done and I completed the track bed by early November.I also installed the cables for the points and track power under the track bed. |
