Grandad spends 30 years building working miniature railway in his back garden

Express & Star

A train buff has spent more than 30 years building a stunning working miniature railway track - in his own back garden.  Derek Burwell, 84, created the 272 yard line around the edge of his 40ft (12m) wide garden at his home in Pelsall.

Transcript

00:00My name's Derek Burwell. I've been involved in railways since I was born. I've been building

00:23railways and this is the second railway I've been involved in, even the full-size at Tysley.

00:54I've always been involved in railways. My father used to work for Birmingham coach and carriage

01:00work so I was very fortunate when I was young to be invited to go round the works on a Sunday

01:07morning and see the commissioner and sneak into the factory and climb on board coaches and

01:13rolling stock that we used to export all over the world. We used to build loads of stuff from

01:18all over the world for South Africa, India, Pakistan so I was very fortunate to be able to

01:25do all that when I was a young person. And it's gone on from there, model railways, toy trains

01:32and it's expanded into what I do now which I've been doing for quite some time.

01:37It's

01:47sometimes sad to see after I've built it it goes on to somebody else that

01:52enjoys it but that's part of the game, it keeps me busy. This locomotive is battery electric,

01:59it's called Woody because the majority of it is made out of wood, not like they're normally made

02:06out of steel so all the components here as you see are all made out of wood except obviously

02:14aluminium for the controls and everything else and the wheels obviously are all steel and axle boxes

02:21but the rest of the components are all wood which I always wanted to prove that you could

02:27make one out of wood. You achieve something at the end of the day when you look at the railway

02:33so yeah it's been an eventful time and but I'm now 83

02:40so yeah it's coming towards the end, I don't think I'll build anything big anymore you know.

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