Tour de Gardens - A Garden Railway Marathon

The weather has been too nice to sit in and do modelling or wargaming lately, so the last couple of weeks have been busy with several members from our model railway club visiting several garden railways. It has also been a large variation on rollingstock and some unusuak seen during our running sessions. Therefore I hope you watch this blogpost to the end. 

The last couple of weeks I've visited a couple of other Garden Railway layouts since I've attended to the Grand Opening of Pletten Railway.

White Pass & Yukon Route Garden Railway

A friend and fellow model railway club member, Gunnar, has a very overall and well executed G-scale White Pass & Yokon Route railway in his garden. He wrote a blog on and had a YouTube-channel on his old layout at his old house. Gunnar and his family has since moved houses within the same neighborhood, and he has been creating a new version of his layout in his new garden. This was not a running session so I wasn't bringing any trains this time. The was just lending a hand to get his layout ready for the season. I'd like to share a couple of photos from it though:

This is how Gunnar's layout looks like before we've inspected, leveling and adjusted the tracks and placed the structures 

Bennett Station

White Pass Station

On 'the wrong side of the tracks' in White Pass the Bank is strategically placed besides the Saloon... 

-And that might become handy as there seems like there are someone who plans for a 'good time' in the Saloon. 

A final test run to see if everything works. This German Mallet locomotive was just for testing the tracks as Gunnar har proper American White Pass rollingstock which he uses on his layout. 

Gunnar's Garden Railway is now ready for running this season!

Opsundbanen/ Opsund railway

Just a few days after our club-members made an effort at Gunnar's garden railway, another member in our model railway club, Heine, invited to a running-session and BBQ in his garden for the Pentecost weekend. This time I brought a train though:

It's the first time I see this Nohab diesel in G-scale by Piko. It's hughe! Similar locomotives was used by the Norwegian State Railway NSB, and I think the ownerhas a plan to eventually give it a Norwegian livery:

Erik's garden railway at Kvastebyen

Less than a week after the day out in Heine's garden, Erik invited us over to his garden to run trains on his garden railway as the weather was really sunny and hot. Usually when I bring my trains over to friends I fill up several boxes just for a modest train. This time I didn't have the car as my wife was using it, so I had to ride my motorcycle instead. -So several boxes was out of the question. Luckily I have an old pannier which is quite large. Which will hold some trains even in large scale.

This is how much trains I could carefully fit into the pannier. It had to be loaded with 'motorcycles' as I was driving one my self to this day out:

Here are some photos and videos of my German Military while running on Erik's lovely garden railway:

Here are some of the other train on the line this day:

Erik is also into H0e and 009 modelling. Both these are narrow gauge locomotives of similar class:

After running trains for a while it was time for a break...

...and BBQ some hotdogs...

...but it's pastry which is Erik' specialty:

Opsundbanen revisited 

Every time I'm about to hit 'the publish button' on this blogpost, someone invites to another running-session in their garden, and this blogpost goes back to the draft again. Earlier this week Heine suggested that instead of going to the weekly meeting at our model railway club, we could bring some trains and food and come to his garden for a running-session and BBQ as the weather was perfect. My wife was using the car again, so this was same procedure as last time:

I brought another train this time though:

Heine was running his German Military Heeresfeldbahn HF110C locomotive in a camouflage livery:

One German, one British. Both military 

There were not so many other trains this afternoon:

We had a great time together with coffee, cakes and barbecuing:

To all of you; Gunnar, Heine and Erik; Thank you very much for inviting and having us and for your great and warm hospitality!

I think this must be one of the most active model railway clubs or societies in Norway regarding the number of running-sessions, so thank you for making it possible guys!