# A New Siding and Town on the Knackered Valley Garden Railroad



## backyardRR (Aug 14, 2012)

One corner of my Knackered Valley garden railroad has never been developed much past a Piko station. An area adjacent to the tracks was simply sowed with wildflower seeds until I could decide what to do with the area.










Populating that corner with scale buildings could get pretty pricey. Then one day I was strolling through my local Michael’s craft store when I spotted wood bird houses of various designs. They resembled period structures aside from perches and holes for birds to enter. Fairly under scale and made of a wood that looked like it would last maybe two seasons. What the heck. They were cheap enough (<$10 each) so I bought a bunch.











I then proceeded to cut off the perches and cover the holes and doors with styrene. I then painted them with various shades of acrylic paint, including the bottom of the base. Last thing was to spray them top to bottom with clear FlexSeal spray, also including the underside of the base.












I also decided that this being the only area with a fairly long straight section it made a good place to install a siding. One that could handle the longest trains I could run. Using my usual techniques I dug and filled a trench with tamped paver base and spliced in two Piko R5 switches and the passing siding track (Bachmann). Since my RR is DC I included appropriately placed insulated rail joiners and wired everything to an outdoor double SPST switch. Each switch controlled current to each of the two tracks. One new Piko track switch required that the station be moved down several feet. I also added an Aristo passenger shelter that I acquired at a train show. (The bag on the outdoor switch provides an extra level of water protection)












The former wildflower area was cleared and covered with weed block topped with pebbles for the ground and paver sand for the roads. I placed the new buildings randomly along the roads. They are undersized but create a bit of forced prospective in the distance. Dollar Store solar lights illuminate the area at night.












From a lower viewpoint, a freight train passes a passenger train stopped at the station.












I needed to name my new town. Since it was near a corner area that I also recently cleared out and “populated” with various gnomes, I decided to name the town “Gnome Valley”.












Things will grow in over the years and provide a nice secluded spot. I have since added a couple more Arborvitae. 









I’ll finish with a Summertime shot from a different perspective.









Happy and peaceful holidays to all.
Wayne


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## backyardRR (Aug 14, 2012)

My apologies for the size of the photos. This is the first time I am using Flickr and the photos are right sized in Flickr but much smaller in MLS. I recall in the past I could resize my photos in the MLS editor but not any more. Maybe it has to do with Flickr?


Update. Much trial and error. Needed to resize photos in Flickr using the Share Photo icon.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

Wayne, a very nice job on Gnome Valley.


backyardRR said:


> Update. Much trial and error. Needed to resize photos in Flickr using the Share Photo icon.


I wouldn't bother with the photos. This MLS forum software takes care of downsizing over-large photos; there will be a yellow bar on top with "click here to see original". Not like the old days when we got reprimanded for posting too-large images.


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## on30gn15 (May 23, 2009)

That makes a nice little town. 

When I saw this in email update from the forum my brain initially registered thread title as "*A New Sliding Town on the* ..." and I was really curious to see how that was engineered!


Flickr has a screen where you select a size to have image displayed as in forums and bulletin boards, is that something you knew of or perhaps not?


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## backyardRR (Aug 14, 2012)

It took this aging brain sometime but I did finally see the Flickr resize box. It also took awhile to figure out I needed to parse out the url from the BBcode box. This time I wrote it all down so the next time will be easy.
The town _is_ built on a hill of fill from the new siding trench so maybe with a heavy rain the town could be sliding. 


Over on Large Scale Central someone mentioned using prepainted birdhouses from ACE. Much more expensive though. Someone else mentioned that they won't last long. Maybe, but the price was right and covering them in clear flex seal (including the bottom) should help. Also, they are stored in the shed from Nov until about April.


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## David Leech (Dec 9, 2008)

Wayne,
An excellent job of taking something and making it useful for your hobby.
Good job on the painting and modifying.
Merry Christmas,
David Leech, Delta, Canada


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## choochoowilly (Oct 31, 2016)

Very nice looking love the bird houses


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