Lukey and the Garden Railroad

While Lukey and Kenzie were spending the week with us, Lukey got in plenty of time running trains on the garden railroad...  the Kenzington Gardens Railroad.  As I've mentioned in previous blog entries about this little garden railroad, we control the trains via Bluetooth and the power is supplied by a battery in each train.  

It can get a bit complicated running multiple trains at once by yourself but Lukey is now able to control two trains at the same time using his iPhone.  And, he was even shooting photos while running both trains at one point!

I don't know if I've ever shared a photo showing the entire garden railroad so I shot one photo showing almost all of it (below).  The only thing missing in the photo is the curve on the right side of the frame that brings the trains back around the bend to the train station on the front side of the garden railroad.  This is very small for a backyard garden railroad!  Little by little, I add a bit more detail and points of interest to this tiny railroad to keep it interesting. 

Here is a photo showing the length of the front side of the garden railroad...

The trains ran very, very smoothly so they were a pleasure to run!  Rough running trains are frustrating and, fortunately, we had no problems over the past week.  

The biggest problem was that I am still storing all these trains and buildings inside the house so we had to make many trips to and from the house to set everything up and then again after we tore everything down at the end of the night.  By "everything" I mean all the trains, buildings, people, and vehicles.  Everything else stays out in the weather.  This time, however, there was no rain forecast for one of the nights so we left everything outdoors except for the steam locomotive and the trolley.  They are the most expensive pieces of this railroad so those were brought inside.

In the photo below, the steam locomotive is pulling a few freight cars including a gondola.  The gondola is backed into the end of this siding where the coal storage silos are located.  

Below is another view of the newest bridge on the garden railroad.  Everyone seemed to really like the design of this bridge so this little bridge project was a success.  I'm happy with it too.  I still need to add some old fashioned street lamps though.  That is more of the electronics part of this project that was put on hold due to daily rain.  I didn't want to have exposed electronics while I was installing the circuit boards only to get caught in another rain shower.  So, this part of the project was put on hold.

Below, we have a car waiting to cross the railroad tracks on the back end of the bridge....

I changed this area under the truss bridge this year.  I expanded it slightly and made a dry riverbed under this nice-looking bridge.  I could really do a bit more work on this to make it look more realistic but everyone seemed to know what it was even unfinished.  

I added a roof to the coal storage silos which makes it look more realistic.  This is such an iconic early to mid-twentieth century railroad structure that I'm really liking this rather simple big structure.  We had one of these silos near our home when I was growing up on Long Island.  It was definitely a landmark structure because you couldn't miss it if you were within a mile or two of it.

I got a photo of Lukey capturing a few photos as the big steam locomotive chugs toward us.  Actually, I was going to capture a photo of that same locomotive but then Lukey plopped down right in front of me so I captured a photo of his camera instead.

Here is a photo of the steam locomotive traversing the long curved wood trestle bridge...

Below, the trolley is coming around the bend from the back side of the garden railroad to the train station on the front side of the railroad...

Here is a shot of the unfinished train station platform.  I want to eventually add a roof over this platform as well as add lighting.  The unfinished platform works well in the interim but, in my mind, I see a much more detailed train station scene...

I like the light reflecting off the tops of the rails...

Here is another view of part of the long curved wood trestle bridge....

The obligatory shot of the Gramps Oil Tank Car in honor of dear ole Gramps who got me started in model railroading before Kindergarten.  I purchased this tank car specifically because it had Gramps' name on it.

As the sun is getting low, below, we are looking down the newest bridge toward the back side of the garden railroad.  This bridge is for vehicles with grade crossings at each end of the bridge...

Same view, different train...

The Kenzington Gardens train station also has a new roof that was added this spring...  

The biplane is still flying over the treetops...

We have two people sitting on the railing of the new vehicle roadway bridge.  They are perched high above a valley looking toward the railroad truss bridge...

The sun is getting low as night approaches...

I captured a photo of Lukey controlling both trains using his iPhone while he also is capturing photos using his camera...

The garden railroad got plenty of use this past week and I know Lukey enjoyed it!

I still have electronics to add to various lighting features in the coming days or weeks.  I don't think I'll get to any other additions this year though.  The rest of the new features will have to wait until next year.