Modelling a model of a Garden railway - model.

Most of work is built for either a specific customer - or one of our exhibition tours. Teresa and I still build models just for ourselves though - no rules, no schedule and no planned destination. This is one that I’ve been thinking about for a couple of years though, and it’s finally finished!

Apart from building a model railway with my dad when I was about 8 - I’ve never had my own toy trains. I’ve certainly built LEGO ones - in fact the first MOC (My Own Creation) I made as an adult was of a GNER east coast train. My second was the Forth Bridge! And of course, St Pancras Station. Other than these though, I’ve not spent much time build LEGO railways. At 1:40 scale, one of the main problems is just that they’re too large to keep made up.

One of the first AFOL friends I made however, is based nearby in Scotland and very much into LEGO trains. He’s attended more than 100 local model railway shows with his LEGO trains and a difference. He lets the kids drive all the trains - and of course it’s very popular! Naturally, I’ve been to a couple with him and that’s where I found out about T Gauge. First developed in Japan, T Gauge trains are really tiny. Really, really tiny. In fact, they are the smallest commercially available model trains. The ‘T’ stands for the distance between the tracks - 3mm or 1/8” for those in the US. This makes the trains a scale of 1:450 or 480, 10 times smaller than LEGO trains!!

So, a thought crossed my mind. T Gauge is 1:450ish and LEGO around 1:45. That makes T gauge trains about 1:10 equivalents for my minifigures. That puts them roughly in the scale of garden railways…..

So, say hello to a LEGO model - of a model railway! For those of you that know Edinburgh, the cottage is loosely based on the one in Princes St Gardens - but otherwise it’s pure fantasy. It’s safe to say that this wasn’t the easiest model to make! As soon as I realised that a garden railway would work, I decided it would be best to lean into that setup. Especially as I found out that these trains will fit underneath a 1x3 arch brick. They are that small! Running the trains through cuttings, tunnels and under bushes presents its own problems though. Of course there’s no standard for this - so it’s been a lot of trial and error. I’ve even had to build around running trains for a while to check they still work!

I have to say thanks to Teresa for help with the foliage - this is much more her thing and I’ve borrowed heavily from her designs. Also, I should thank the brilliant people at www.tgauge.com. It turns out that they are based about a mile from our home in Edinburgh and have been very helpful. They also ship worldwide, hint, hint. I have no relationship to them code but I can’t recommend them highly enough!

Hopefully the model works well though with such a weird mix of scales. The model railway part itself is very simple - just an oval. I decided it was probably best not to get too complicated for a first attempt. Although I could have made a much more complex layout, surrounding the rails with square LEGO bricks is much easier if the track is straight! Of course, any seasoned model railway builder will also know that with this many tunnels - trains are always going to derail inside them. So, I also had to bear that in mind and make all of the track accessible under hidden panels. In fact, even the house is removable if you want!

Although this was only really built as a personal project - it turns out it will actually be on public display very soon. After I’d started on this, we were asked to supply a few LEGO garden models and a massive strawberry* to the Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh this summer. So, you can get the chance to see this in person alongside a walled garden, knot garden and even an AT-AT garden. There probably won’t be any moving trains, but you can get up close and personal to it as part of the ‘play with plants’ exhibition until 1st September 2024. Failing that, It’s certainly going to be coming with me to a few AFOL shows in the next year!

Now, I just need to work out what’s next. I do have another train (a full GNER consist) and quite a lot of extra track. Another LEGO/railway model - or a more traditional setup? Choices, choices….

*more details on the way…