Nor'West News: February 11, 2021

NOR’WEST NEWS Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Thursday February 11 2021 9
Full steam ahead in Bill’s backyard
• By Susan Sandys
BILL STANLEY, 67, has created a
model train lovers’ fantasy land in
his backyard.
When he and wife Maggie
moved to their new home in Canterbury
five years ago, Stanley saw
“a blank canvas, just waiting for a
garden railway layout.”
He set to work, and today has
eight model trains which run
on more than 200m of track, set
amongst a 27m diorama of buildings,
settlements, fields and bridges.
The trains pass through all sorts
of activity amongst the Playmobil
people, vehicles and buildings,
including a wedding outside
Lincoln Union Church, fields being
harvested, and a quarry being
mined.
Some of the buildings, including
the church, Stanley has made
himself, learning first through
the Canterbury Garden Railway
Group of which he is a committee
member, and then teaching himself
along the way.
The track and its impressive
setting, at the couple’s home in Lincoln,
is complete with a pond and
real goldfish. It has been a labour of
love, and one that has its origins in
Stanley’s childhood.
“Trains just fascinated me as a
child and they still do, we have
been from LA to New York by
train,” he said.
His grandfather William Stanley
gave him a Hornby double O
railway set when he was about
five.
William had worked on the
railways, and Stanley has inherited
the whistle that William used
in his job, believed to be as an engineer,
and keeps it on his garden
railway key ring.
Stanley kept the passion for
trains and railways moving
down the generations; he and
Maggie bought their 29-year-old
son Richard his first engine when
he was a baby.
They continued to add to the
collection, and always incorporated
train travel in their overseas
trips. These were for professional
purposes in earlier years
as Stanley travelled as part of his
job as a pharmaceutical company
director.
The trip through the United
States was in the 1990s, while
they also lived in Thailand for
five years to 1998 and travelled
extensively through Europe.
“You can set your clock by the
trains in Switzerland,” he said.
While trains in Thailand at
the time were substandard in
comparison, they had been just as
enjoyable to travel on as the country’s
elephants and longboats.
Stanley sometimes has groups
come and view his backyard
garden railway creation, and it is
a hobby he enjoys with others in
the garden railway group, which
will be hosting the National
Garden Railway Convention
in Christchurch on Waitangi
Weekend.
He said setting up the train
track, which runs from a purpose-built,
life-size shed, takes 90
ALL ABOARD:
Bill Stanley has
transformed his
backyard into a
garden railway
enthusiast’s
paradise.
PHOTO:
SUSAN SANDYS
minutes each time.
“It’s quite a lot of work to have
them running to precision, it’s
quite common to have derailments,”
Stanley said.
Obstacles such as stones or
grit on the track, or interception
by creatures such as the Stanley
household’s pet cats or dogs, were
the cause of such frustrations.
One of the biggest challenges
had been securing the track in
ballast that wouldn’t move when
a blower is used to remove pine
needles which have fallen down
from nearby trees.
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