Well, here we are at Paraparaumu. Donna has spent many hours clearing the weeds from the gardens and it's time to think about laying some track down. Lets start at the station area, this has become known as Lake George as we received a Piko structure with that name on it. This will be corrected in the future.

The track in the yard area is Peco code 250, as are the majority of my turnouts and yard trackage. The obligatory lake and windmill have already appeared on the scene. Next we'll have a look at a couple of closeups of this station area, and just for effect lets turn on the "old fashion" filter on the camera.

Yes that is Hartland's 4-4-0 pulling up to one of my scratchbuilt water tanks. Here's another shot, from the other side and showing that "cheap" station building.

Alright then, a train's got to have somewhere to go, so about 100 feet away i have a depot that will be the interchange from this mainline to my logging line, but just at this stage there are simply staging tracks there and no branch.

Ahhh, yes, that Depot was built for me by my good friend Joe, from JADE. Well, there must be a water tank here too, so lets see what we have...

Hmmm, very nice, and I see the "old fashion" filter has fallen off too. Good! Well, lets see if we can get a little closer to this unusual loco...

What is it you may ask, well obviously it's a 2-8-0T, but more importantly, the body is from Bachmann, and the running gear from my Aristo 2-8-0 tender loco. What a great little tank engine it makes!

And never being one to sit around, here is a 5.5 meter (18 feet) long trstle that we have built at one end of the Garden Railway that carries the new 3 meter radius end loop around and over Donna's garden. Lets go in for a closer look...

And of course that's Aristocrafts Consolidation hauling a rake of Bachmann's cattle cars. All weathered much to Donna's disappointment.

And with that new 3 meter radius curve at the left hand end, we just had to do the same at the right hand return loop, so here it is under construction. Near the middle of the picture is the new 2.1-meter span through Arch Deck Bridge I built.

This is the same area but looking from the other side. This gives a better view of the new bridge along with other bridges needed to "bridge" the gap!

Another construction photo, this time with some early landscaping done between the bridges.

A last look at the construction phase before the first train...

And here she is, the first train ready to depart Lake George (hmmm, must change that!) for the first circuit of the newly completed mainline.

Just in front of the loco (to it's left) is the "Rusty Spike" that marks where the mainline was finally completed.

Here's our express on the new 3 meter radius right-of-way.

Crossing a short Thru Howe Truss...

...and on to the new 2.1 meter span arched bridge.

Finally, where would we be without our chief track inspector?

And just to confirm that...

And that's it for now, but watch this space! 

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