Squirrel Valley Railway
Grant and Donna have been key sources of expertise, support and encouragement during
the early development of the Winter Creek. Here's a bit about their own railway....
We have been working on this current incarnation of Squirrel Valley Railway since spring 2002. Prior to this we were building the railway at Paraparaumu on a 4-acre block, but after life threw us a curve ball we uprooted everything, and shifted north to Cambridge. And around November 2004 the mainline was complete.
We are located on SH 1 a short distance from Cambridge township, but are well hidden amongst some mature trees and a lot that we have planted ourselves. The little railway boasts a mainline of over 300 meters, along with about 140 meters in storage sidings, yard and steam-up area, wye and passing loop. There is one tunnel of about 12 meters (pictured here), and a bridge just over 4 meters in length over a lake stocked with small fish. The railway is about having fun and so continuos in basic plan, but also there is a lot of room for "operation" as the layout incorporates ten sets of points thus giving a number of "destinations". The maximum gradient is about 1:60 and there are about 27 track meters of covered storage for the safe storage of visiting rolling stock.
Loading facilities are two-fold with a simple 2.5 meter link-span for the lighter loco’s to load/unload direct into the covered storage tracks, and also a 50 meter long 1:25 earth ramp bringing the track up to trailer height directly from our mainline.
Also on our property is a reasonably extensive "G" scale garden railway that often will run at a moment’s notice, pictured to right…
We welcome visitors here at Squirrel Valley; there is always a cuppa for visiting train nutters, and usually a bed (or two) for weekend visitors. Please do ring first to make sure we’re not out visiting other train nutters!
This is my best toy. A nice big, easy to control model. I had this built as I could never hope to bu...
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Uploaded: 2008 / 04 / 07
The other side.
Photo John Oxlade.
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Uploaded: 2008 / 04 / 07
Once again, I have the BEST wife, chack out what I have done on my land... yup thats part of my ya...
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Uploaded: 2008 / 04 / 07
I want one of these... or perhaps two or three...
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Uploaded: 2008 / 04 / 07
Grant & Donna Alexander
Squirrel Valley Railway
trains@clear.net.nz