After a change in direct John finally closed his railway around a year after this article was written and emigrated to New Zealand. We wish him all the best with his new life and hope both John and Pip have a great life together.

Most regular visitors to this site will be aware of John Oxlade's Salfords Light Railway Website. John has given me plenty of feed back and has/is helping develope RoR products. Therefore I thought it only fair to bully John in to providing an article for our first news sheet.

The Salfords Light Railway one year on

Would I have expected 12 months ago that I would have achieved so much? In a word NO. 12 months ago I had a bland garden with an ugly, huge laurel hedge down one side. Now I have an attractive garden with a passenger carrying railway around it, landscaped with rockeries, heathers and conifers. So how did I get from there to here?

There were several things that all came together at the same time, each on its own would have meant nothing, combined the effect was surprising.

The hedge - was always a thorn in my side. Grew like wild-fire, was taking over the garden, was a drag to cut back each year, and to top it all off, laurel doesn't rot down, it just goes all rubbery and horrible. The hedge had to go. My girfriend Doris - asked why I didn't have a railway round the garden. This was like waving a red rag at a bull.

Discovering 5" gauge - after thinking that the smallest practical, passenger carrying gauge was 7.25"

In early 2002 I started surfing the Internet looking for information. I think I started on Maxitrak's site as I knew of them. Their specifications showed me fairly quickly that I couldn't run 7.25" in my garden unless I'd be happy with a straight out-n-back run - which I wouldn't be. However, Maxitrak also did 5" gauge locos, and according to their specs, I should be able to get a circuit in my 26' wide garden by using 10' radius curves. 5" had never really occured to me as I do not like raised tracks and had associated 5" gauge with these. Here though were 5" models you could run on the ground that could haul a couple of adults. This opened the flood-gates so to speak, and I was off searching the Internet for more and more information. At about this time I stumbled across Ride on Railways and the rest is history.

I went along to Paul Middleton's open day in May 2002 and that was effectively the final nail in the coffin. Here were practical, inexpensive models to get me going, and Paul's general can-do help-out attitude was a God send. The Ride on Railways website had a wealth of useful information to get me going so I was off out in the garden with tape measure, pad and pencil and I soon had a plan with all the hard objects clearly marked out. With this it was a fairly straightforward job to rough-in the outline of where the track could go and what I could actually get in the space I had - which was not a lot. Paul makes a simple, un-sprung, 4-wheel chassis and I bought one of these to get my feet wet in 5".

This, my first item of rolling-stock was used to make a drop side, open wagon I could use for moving stuff around the garden. For quite some time, this was the only item of 5" stock I had, I didn't even have any track. Left: The above mentioned wagon waiting for the arrival of rail.

I had the hedge taken out and replaced with a simple-to-maintain wooden fence, giving me access to the full 26' width of my garden. Then, Doris and spent a 2 week summer holiday ripping the garden apart. Even though I had ordered track it hadn't arrived, which in hindsight was probably a good thing as it allowed us to get on with the landscaping without being "distracted" by the thought of track laying. We dug out most of the trackbedm for the main circuit, dug a pond and built 3 rockeries during the holiday. We also spread out 1 ton of ballast - but no track.

This was it, I was committed now. I had bought a Ride on Railways Trojan in kit form and was working away on that. The remaining time over the next few months was spent digging out the rest of the track bed. Then in Nov 2002 the plain track arrived and I was off. Construction of my Trojan was put on hold as I had a runnnig chassis and could play, but now I had track! (As of June 2003 my Trojan is still not complete - I'll get there).

More work was done on the station area - and there is still lots to do - but the main "body" of the garden is now mostly done and the plants are getting established.

June was approaching fast and fine-tuning of things like points and levelling the track in places came to the fore, and before we knew it it was one week to go. We tidied up the garden, setup the gazebo, barbeque etc. and the guests started arriving. Everyone had fun for the afternoon and evening and then it was all over. Why is it the last few weeks and hours go by so fast?

Was it all worth it? Oh yes, absolutely. I had no real interest in my garden, but now there is a railway out there it gives me the nudge to get outside and do things. My neighbours think it is great too - which is a bonus.

So what is in the future? Well, I still have to build the loco- and carriage-sheds, these with the turntable will finish off the station area. Then I guess I need to look at some rolling-stock you can actually sit on. I have a garden to maintain to provide the backdrop to the railway, then there is the routine track maintenance. Then... Well, we'll have to see. But behind all of this I'll be out there running trains round on my own little light railway.

Go on, give it a try yourself, having your own railway it is so much fun the governemt will probably put tax on it

For a full and detailed account of John's railway complete with inpiring resources, galleries and links see his web site

SALFORDS LIGHT RAILWAY