The HSBA Garden Railway is an G-Scale outdoor model railway based in St. Mary, Jersey. The layout is G-Scale (a space of 45mm between the rails) with the locomotives and wagons being approximately 22.5 times smaller than the real thing.
The railway began construction in August 2021 after the move to Jersey uniting Curtis’ childhood hobby of model railways and a love of gardening. Currently, over 138m (455ft) of track navigates around our back garden through tunnels, over bridges and past the pond in our modest 119m2 (1280ft2) back garden.
The garden railway is still very under construction (but when are gardens or model railways ever really done?)
Track Plan
Why is named HSBA?
I decided to name our garden railway HSBA for a couple of reasons:
First, it’s nod to the HSB Railway that runs through the beautiful Harz region in Germany. Those of you that have encountered G Gauge before will probably notice the distinctive red and cream coaches that are featured on many LGB layouts. I went on a walking holiday there in 2020 and had a lovely time so it was nice to include that.
Second, each letter is taken from the start of surnames of my immediate families. It was simply luck they worked in conjunction with the HSB acronym. The railway has 5 stations, 4 of which are named after each family-name in a Germanised styled.
Garden Railways and me
As a kid, I loved trains and was fortunate enough to get a Hornby 00-gauge train-set when I was 5. Fast forward a few years (I was around 10) and I distinctly remember opening my first present on Christmas morning and being amazed (and confused) as I unwrapped a point [turnout to our American friends] that was bigger than my head. It all made a lot more sense as I opened a couple more boxes to find an LGB Starter Set (the passenger one with the red and blue passenger coaches)
The hobby grew from there and over the next several years I acquired a modest collection. Through my teens and twenties as life gets in the way everything went dormant but was rekindled in 2018 as I approached my thirties and walked past a model store while living in Berlin. I went inside and the fire was lit. The collection began to grow again