Last Saturday Heine invited to a Boxing Week running session in his garden. I've been working on some new 'winter loads' whichI wanted to try out even if they were still WIP. I'll cover the loads them self in another blogpost when they're finally completed, but I wanted to capture some 'winterish' photos of them for that blogpost despite there was no snow yet. It had stopped raining and we had cold weather for some few days and it kind of looked a litte 'winterish'.
A lot of people attended to this 'Boxer Week' running session, both railway modellers and visitors:
Heeresfeldbahn
Whooops.... Sabotage?? It was just a frozen turnout, just like in real life
WDLR
I've written on this blog before that I've got fewest photos of my WDLR live steam locomotive under steam and videos while running than any other trains, due to it take so much attention running it. This day out both my sons were joining and driving a train each. This meant that I could finally capture some photos and videos of my WDLR while running:
A short brief...
...and the and then he was ready to run the live steam on his own.
Heine capturing me capturing the photo above
Other trains in service
This snow plow is scratch built by Arne
So is this snow rotary
This is an actual train combination from Rätische bahn in Switzerland
It looks like the 'Preisers' are enjoying them self
Gauge 1 (1:32 scale) by Märklin
It looks like Heine's de-icing train is leaking as there were no ice around that tank car.
It's really 'backbreaking' to run trains in the garden... - So a break to enjoy some coffee, mulled wine, cookies...
...and hotdogs was most welcome
This was the 22nd running-session in Heine's and Astrid's garden in 2025. I haven't been able to join them all, but there has also been other 10 running-sessions in other members gardens throughout the year.
Thank you for inviting us over Astrid and Heine and for your warm hospitality.
My wife posted some photos and videos from this great day out on social media and received feedbacks like "Where is this Magic Place"?
Allt om Hobby is a Swedish Hobby magazine established in 1966 which covers every aspects of modelling hobbies including scale-, radio controlled- and railway modelling. Although being Swedish it's probably the biggest Hobby Magazine not only in Scandinavia but in the Nordic Countries as well with 6 annual issues, each with a print run of 4000 magazines + 3000 digital readers. This magazine is available at selected Newsagents in Norway.
Late this summer the editor of Allt om Hobby was visiting Heine, who is a member in out Model Railway Club, to write an article about his Garden Railway. So several members from our Model Railway Club was very early up a Monday morning in September to run trains and provide some traffic on Heines lovely garden railway for this article. Now the latest issue of Allt om Hobby is published, and in this issue is also a 8 page long article about Heine's Garden Railway on print:
I was very delighted and pleased to see that almost a page was used to cover my British and German Military Garden Trains:
The Main Character in this article, and well deserved too, was naturally Heine who has constructed this amazing garden railway, and keeps inviting us over for running sessions and are actively contributing to our active garden railway society. Heine continually keeps posting new photos from running sessions in his garden (and others alike) on his and on our MRC's Facebook groups. Both are 'open' groups and you are welcome to visit and follow them if you like continously updated photos of Garden Railways. I know he's planning a running-session this Sunday, but I won't be able to join due to my work.
Despite the cover-photo and some of the other images in the article are suggesting otherwise, there is absolutely no snow here so far this winter (!). Actually it's mild and been raining more or less constantly since late November. So it's very uncertain at the moment when and if we'll be able to run trains in the snow this winter. -I'm dreaming of a White Christmas ❄️
This year has seen the premier and opening of 2 new Garden Railways; Pletten Railway and Hummelfjell Banen (Ry). Unfortunately this year also saw closure of a local Garden Railway; The Pine Hill Railway (PHRy), or 'Furubakken Hagejernbane' in Norwegian. PHRy was constructed and made by friend and former member of our Model Railway Club, Kjell, and was unfortunately reaching the end of the line as he was moving houses earlier this year.
I was privileged to visit his awesome and fully Scenic Garden Railway with my Roundhouse Live Steam W^D 'Billy' a while ago. Even if PHRy was gauged to 32mm, this was no problem for my W^D 'Billy' which usually runs on 45mm gauge, as this locomotive very simply and quick can be re-gauged to either. Kjell was kindly lending me a 'rake' of his 32mm gauge wagons to pull around his lovely Garden Railway Layout. Here are some impressions of our great day out on The Pine Hill Railway:
Getting ready in the Fiddleyard:
Trains running on Kjell's layout:
My War Department engine working the line:
There was a lot of details and scratchbuilt buildings on the layout:
When reading this RHRy is unfortunately history. Thank you for inviting us and your hospitality Kjell. I'm glad some 'PHRy-History' lives onin my military trains as I bought one of Kjell's scratch-built flat cars.
.jpg "Garden railways in winter. Running G-scale trains in the winter. Boxing week running session. Heeresfeldbahn with loads for winter warfare.")
...and hotdogs was most welcome
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