A very Yorkshire Railway
This is the second revision of the Southgate Light Railway, SLR V2. Started in 2023, this railway has built on the success of the original line which was a raised line built on stone walls.
The railway is raised, with steam up areas set at both standing and sitting heights. However, it was built with the aim of integrating the railway into the garden, which can often be hard to achieve on raised lines. The use of banks around the line blends the track level into the garden.
While the main loop is flat, we do now have an extension which raises up on a 1/50 gradient, giving locos a chance to chuff up the bank past our seating area.
The railway is still growing and bedding in, with planting taking hold of the banking and creeping up to the line.
How it all started...
Back in April 2023, we had a very nice lawn … that someone started to dig up. This was the start of the SLR V2.
We, of course, had a plan of what we wanted to achieve and anyone who knows me will know I have a plan for pretty much everything. We’d even drawn the line and walls out on the lawn with spray markers before we started digging. We didn’t really want to dig any more than needed.
The main railway is a dog bone loop design, with a passing loop between the loops, all made to be on a level for easy manual loco running. We’ve found that dog bone loops provide continuous running but aren’t a boring loop for runners. Single sections of track also require people to communicate to pass at the right places, which we like to encourage.
The ground sloping also allowed us to have a raised steam up area at a comfortable standing height, but not have to build high walls for the rest of the line down the garden.
The railway theme is that of a revived heritage railway running through the Yorkshire Dales. So the use of banks means the line is running along the hillside, just as it would in the Yorkshire Dales.
The construction of the line can be described as ‘Robust’. It’s fair to say that this isn’t a temporary line, we’re here for the long run. Ripon, where we’re based, is known to suffer from the odd sink hole or two. It’s going down as one solid lump if that does happen!
Project D.R.I.O.G - Our YouTube Series
We’re not great at doing write ups about our railway (You can maybe tell from this page about it, ha). We never did one for our old line, which was a regret. So before we even broke ground on this version, we thought about how we wanted to share it with anyone who wanted to see it.
We decided a to create the Project D.R.I.O.G YouTube series on our Southgate Light Railway channel. My thinking was, if we just record while building, it’ll save us time writing it up later. Of course in truth it means you have a whole lot of editing to do later instead!
The videos cover building the railway right from planning, through foundations, walling, ponds and lots of moving of soil. Every now and again we lay some track too. We’ve built a few bridges and a number of features are also in progress. We even try to include all our plant names, so you can decide if they are any good for your line as well. Although do note, we are far from gardeners. A large part of giving plant names is to see what survives in 12 months time!
While we can’t promise the advice we put in the videos is any good, we do try to show our viewers how we’ve done it on our railway. Advice is also given alongside fun, and often daft, actions and statements from us as well. Consider the series as a mix of bad jokes alongside our methods of building a garden railway. Up to you to decide if it’s any good or not (The jokes or the advice).
Running on the SLR
As part of the Yorkshire Group, we hold a number of open days each year where fellow Yorkshire members come to run on our line. Trains and chat are very much the two main things taking place on open days, with tea drinking a very close third place.
With the plants in full bloom (We hope), our summer Open Day sees lots of trains weaving there way through the hillside landscape in the full summer sun… or rain. It is Yorkshire after all. The Yorkshire Group has a good number of members, which means open days are very rarely a quiet affair, with lots of locos in steam, or noisy diesels making themselves heard.
We also hold a special event at the end of the open day season, with our ‘Steam by Lantern Light’ event. Starting in the afternoon, we invite members to run into the dark with the line lit by lanterns, flame torches and solar lights. A very atmospheric evening with our little locos lighting the way, with SLR Models lamps of course 😉
