So apparently, I’m going to build a railway in my garden. Welcome to my mid-life crisis!

I know this isn’t a bad idea, because my Glamorous Research Assistant (GRA) has been quietly accepting and even supportive, rather than expressing incredulity/mockery/horror/desperate cries for a good divorce lawyer.

Also, it has been mentioned to the eldest Junior Research Assistant (JRA) and, while she hasn’t yet grasped the idea that it isn’t going to appear instantly, the way she immediately fetched her Brio trains from her bedroom to the garden suggested some enthusiasm. (Yes yes, I know - she has dolls too, it’s not like we’re bringing her up alá The Wasp Factory.) This might also be connected with her current obsession for Thomas The Whinging Scouse Engine, or the fact that her bestest chum Harvey may come to live at our house if there are trains there, according to his mother. Possibly his dad too.

In fact, it’s surprising - and gratifying, if not downright suspicious - how much interest there’s been so far, via the GRA’s Facebook. No one has used the word “Sad” or “nervous breakdown” yet, at least not in public. (Cheers to my friend Anthony at Shildon NRM for the offer of a loaner engine - I’ll have the Scotsman, ta.)

Anyway, it’s going to be a small one. Ish. I mean, the smallest would be about a metre of track under the wall, but it wouldn’t offer much of the aforementioned “fun”. I think a short end-to-end layout would quickly become frustrating with the live steam loco that is proposed: having to switch direction every minute, etc. So it needs to be a circuit, but a circuit of the whole garden would take too long to build and, at this stage, be too onerous an undertaking.

A profile of our garden: it’s basically a rectangle running alongside the house, mostly two strips of lawn bisected by a path. There are mature Beech and Ash trees in opposite corners, and a shed and a patio in the other corners. There is also now an 8 ft trampoline in one half, a three-seater swing in the other and sundry colourful plastic play things scattered around the remaining area (although these can at least be moved around if we want to decorate the lawn with large yellow patches). Around the lawn are 1m wide borders, with a stone wall on two sides and a wooden fence (hiding a steep slope) on the other.

My initial idea was simply to go round the Beech tree, so I set to and cleared all the weeds around it at 8pm one Friday night (not that my sanity is already suspect by this stage or anything). But there isn’t much clearance between the tree and the fence, and what there is has a big lump of concrete in the way. Plus, the ground is riddled with roots and the GRA wants to put the sandpit there, which doesn’t leave much space at all.

Better then to stick to the border around the lawn. But the lawn is big, so to complete a circuit, I’ll have to cross it at some point. (My first clue that all this might be a go-er came when the GRA didn’t complain vociferously about this option. A-ha!) I reckon a fourteen foot diameter oval around roughly the top third of the lawn will do it. Downsides are potentially three straight sides, which isn’t very interesting or prototypical, and a lack of foreground plant cover to hide stretches of track and make it look less like the basic shape it is - unless I can reshape the lawn a bit too.

Other definites:

• It’s going to be SM-32 narrow gauge (that’s 16mm to the foot scale models on 32mm gauge track, representing 2ft narrow gauge prototypes), roughly based a on North Wales slate line ambience (straight lines notwithstanding). The more ramshackle, basic and overgrown the cheaper better.
• Eventually, I need to run live steamers on this, which is the whole point.
• Ignoring the last point(!), it needs to be cheap and relatively straightforward to build, without much impact on the appearance of the garden. For me, that means no carpentry, concrete or cement involved (“Slob the Builder! Can he bodge it? Slob the Builder! Yes if he can be arsed!”).
• Must avoid anything ambitious, otherwise it will never be completed. The goal is to run a train on a semi-permanent railway as quickly and easily as possible.

Definitely nots:

• I’m not going to wear a little peaked cap labelled “engine driver” (sorry Ian, not that I didn’t like the cap or anything) or blow a whistle.
• I will not start referring to myself as “Chief Mechanical Engineer”, my good lady wife as “the Executive/the Ministry” (or indeed, “my good lady wife”) and the house as “the Company workshops”.
• No timetables. No “humorous” noticeboards about not crossing the line or pulling the chain in the station. No egg-stained society ties. Anoraks in cold weather only.

Also, I’m not sure about giving it a name, particularly a dreadful punning one. These can often seem a bit cutsey-poo. (That said, and going with the pseudo-Welsh theme, I’m quite tempted by The Rhach and Rhwyn. Maybe.)

(Look, it’s fine if you want to do all that stuff. Far be it from me to prescribe the limits of someone else’s fun. But I’m already picking up speed on the descent towards Sadsville, so there have to be some check rails along the permanent way. Oh darn, there I go…)

Anyway, while I think further about all this, there’s plenty more garden railway pr0n on Youtube to drool over.