Over the past couple of months I have firmly understood the immense joy that goes hand in hand with building something from nothing.  People often say that they learnt how to do something out of necessity.  This I can wholeheartedly agree with.  Living so far from where all the ready to run (RTR) models and kits are produced a large increase, especially in heavy items, comes from the postage - often doubling the total cost.  This has necessitated a heavy use of imagination and ingenuity (mostly born by luck).

Anything you buy has been made by someone!  So, that means you can make anything.  Not exactly, but it does mean you can approximate a suitable version of virtually anything.  This is the point at which imagination comes in to play.  I must confess to a large gap in my knowledge of all things related to railways.  Seeing no point whatsoever in trainspotting I do, however, see a fascination in the charm of a small local branchline with a steam loco pulling quaint and rickety carriages or trucks.  What has helped me overcome this lack of knowledge is a combination of imagination, perusal of Garden Rail, some really informative websites and a large dose of motivation.  The main motivation is to be in control of my own small world in which I can create a time when life was a little slower, somewhere I can truly relax and get away from it all.  As an English teacher in Japan I really do need to get away from it sometimes!

Let's take an example so you can see what I mean.  I'm building a battery outline (meaning fake) steam engine .  I have reused the RC from a cheap and well played with RC car (no longer played with now).  To make it that bit closer to a steam engine I took the 'chuff, chuff, woowoo' from an old 'Thomas' money box (it makes that sound as a coin is inserted).  The sound unit or one inch pcb used to run on 3 watch batteries.  These batteries I kept in my bits box as I had read once not to throw anything away.  So, what can you do with old watch batteries?

In a related event, my wife entered my diesel, box van and station in a local DIY store's competition.  Later on we got a letter saying I had passed the first round and would I bring my bits in to be inspected (my wife had sent in only photos).  Well, I've had a week to improve the models in an attempt to progress further in the competition (oh, well..).  The diesel had no interior at all so I have scratch built a proper cab (Photo will appear after I get the models back from the DIY chain).  I made the dials for the cab from ... that's right, the old batteries, left silver with mini meter dials painted on the plus sides.  Seats are plywood with brass tube and bits of phono plugs to look like height adjusting thingeys.  The driver was made from children's modelling clay.  Other details, scrounged from here, there and everywhere include a mini-microphone as a horn, AA batteries as tanks, bits of an old shirt rolled up as a canopy, a button as a hand-wheel and bits of a necklace as coupling chains.

Making anything from nothing has given me a satisfying diesel for almost no cost.  That - is the joy of scratch building!  Here you can see a bit of the diesel.  Keep in mind that this was my second venture into motive power scratch building.

This year (2006) I took the plunge and decided to make something out of plastic card.  I used to make plastic model kits as a boy, but scratch building from plastic card is rather different.  I've learned a few things along the way and I have a lot more to learn.  Well, of course I do.  But the main thing is that I now feel confident to use plastic again.  This is the first attempt, a very small railcar (8 seater).

Sitting on the grass in the garden the other day, I had a perfect moment.  To my knowledge, this phrase comes from 'The Thief of Time', a Terry Pratchett discworld novel.  Let me describe it to you.  It was a lovely day, the wind was a very slight breeze and the sun was breaking througn intermitent clounds.  'Sage', my olive green loco was pulling a small train of trucks and covered wagons around the line.  The only sounds were of sone distant birds in the close-by park.  As I sat, looking around the garden, at the avenue of small conifers, the bramble-like overgrown thyme and the dry patches of grass, a memory from days long gone came to me.

Back in my days at primary school, when it was a nice day and the teacher had a mind to, our class would pop over to the church.  Being a church school, the grave-yard was almost next-door.  The teacher would find an old spreading tree and sit under it to tell us a story.  I would have been about 8 years old and often as not totally uninterested in the story being told.  So, there we sat, on the grass, with small twigs and fir cones all about the ground.  This...this was the time, I suppose, when I first began scratch building.

Looking around the graveyard, which was a very peaceful place to hear a story, I saw many old graves, crosses and the odd crypt, not at all scary on a sunny afternoon.  This was the inspiration for my afternoon activity.  Taking some small bits of twig and peeling the thin bark of them I began to construct rough crosses, lashing two twigs together with the bark.  These I stuck into the ground, creating a miniature graveyard.  I would sometimes build a small hut or perhaps crypt, naturally housing any large insect that had succumb to the rigors of life.  Bt the end of the story I had created a scale version of our surroundings, often with the enthusiastic help of my neighbouring, equally distracted, mates.

I wonder if this school activity still lives on?  Was this the beginnings of my passion for garden railways?  Well, it might have been!