[?]

Updated Aug 29, 2024

The Sandstone & Termite is a 45 mm gauge garden railway situated in my backyard in Loftus, Sydney, Australia.

All of my locos are battery powered and radio controlled. There is no track power!

I started work in 1994 and at maximum extent. in 2020, I had over 200m of track. The area occupied by the layout was approx 20 x 25 metres (60x75').
In 2000, I removed about half the track as it became too much maintain - much of the handmade track had rotted and a neighbour's large tree kept dropping branches and damaging it.
I now have about 100m of mainline track and 50m of sidings and passing loops.
The picture at left gives a good overview of the layout. Sandstone station yard is at left under the bridge, and the lattice in the distance supports Melaleuca station.

In 2022, I built a tiny indoor G gauge railway, in the shed that used to be my wife's Pottery Studio, in her memory. It is 'pushing the envelope' for G gauge using 30cm (1') radius curves and 1:12 grades. My smaller locos and wagons will run it. It is called the Claymine Branch of the S&TR and allows running in wet weather. Use the "Indoor line" link above to access.

The SaTR and the Claymine Branch also have Youtube pages

Link to all the SaTR videos on Youtube

Link to Claymine (indoor) Branch videos on Youtube

As an example, this is a video of how I built the line,............................................and this one follows a coal train right around the line from Sandstone to Termite,

By building my own track and trains, I was able to get into this hobby at minimum cost. One of the great things about this scale is that you can get most of your materials at the local hardware store instead of specialist model shops, and you can use your normal power tools.

I have used Bachmann locos and rebuilt the bodies, or Aristrocraft motor blocks with scratchbuilt bodies.
All wagons are scratchbuilt from either balsa or styrene sheet. I make no attempt to model fine details. If it looks like a carriage at first glance then that is good enough for most of the people who see it. I'm more of a copier of the general ideas of a vehicle, not an exact modeller.
What I really wanted from G scale was good sound and smoke. I've achieved the first but the realistic smoke is still a goal.

I use radio control and battery locos. The R/C are either from kits of car burglar alarm remote controls, and 2.4GHz model plane radio controllers. Batteries are Rechargeable Nickel metal Hydride (NiMh) of Lithium polymer (LiPo).

Here's just two pics to hopefully whet your appetite to explore further.
This pic shows the sandstone ledge that gave the railway part of its name, and forms the major engineering work, with its 1:25 grade requiring banking of trains.

and this is Sandstone station, in the shadow of the rock!