If Carling made garden railways.....

Had the opportunity, together with other members of the Reading 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers Society, to visit Adrian Shooter's Beeches Light Railway, near Oxford, on Sunday. Its a 2ft gauge railway running in a figure of eight around a lower garden and an upper paddock, with a replica of a Darjeeling Himalaya railway station on the crossover between the two loops. He's also got the only Darjeeling engine outside India - a "B" class 0-4-0 tank built by Sharp Stewart in 1889. I know it now has a tender, but apparently thats because elfin safety won't allow the fireman to balance between the back of the footplate and the buffer of the leading carriage as they do on the Darj. In a couple of places the line has a gradient of 1 in 22, thus emulating, albeit for a very short stretch the engines native habitat.

Relative Hills, on Flickr

DHR "B" Class by Relative Hills, on Flickr

_DSC1626 by Relative Hills, on Flickr

_DSC1634 by Relative Hills, on Flickr

_DSC1646 by Relative Hills, on Flickr

_DSC1657 by Relative Hills, on Flickr

_DSC1659 by Relative Hills, on Flickr

Unfortunately the running had to be curtailed as the engine had developed a rather leaky front end, as can be seen in some of the photo's.

Iain

Great pictures. Never knew about Beeches Railway. Is it open regularly to public?

Unfortunately its not open to the public - Several open days a year are held, "available to relevant groups and organisations who ask nicely". I think it's all to do with health and safety, and the limited size of the line.