Garden Whistle Apr 2012 - Sandman.org.nz

Beauchamp was my brother. Born
15 years before me he was a much older
brother who I had little to do with in
the early years because of the age difference
and living so far apart. Those
who attended the Wairarapa Convention
will have visited his Garden railway.
Beauchamp was a farmer and a
craftsman. When he semi retired to
Masterton he started on OO gauge and
built a large English theme layout. I
recently relocated it and while it was
never intended to be shifted, in the end
it moving a lot easier than I expected.
He also built three model boats including
the Endeavour and the Bounty
from scratch.
The Garden Whistle - April 2012
Beauchamp Charles Dickens
1930 - 2012
In 2000 after I saw a TV program on
Garden Railways I suggested he built
one. I purchased a live steam locomotive
and Beauchamp an LGB locomotive.
He used some brass rail and
welded together steel strips to make up
a large section of the railway. He made
all the turnouts and semaphore signals
which where operated from the turnout controls.
Beauchamp started casting concrete slabs from
plastic sheet used as moulds and so many buildings
and a castle were constructed. He later built
a Mill and church from wood. The railway is the
same length as a tennis court and 5 metres wide.
It consists of a double loop. He also added a
gondola and a model of the Laxey Water wheel
from the Isle of Man.
He started building his own wagons but soon
was purchasing them. His locomotive and wagon
collection soon expanded, mainly in the
American outline style. He built many different
box cars mainly to carry 12 volt batteries which
powered most of his locomotives.
When he tired of a particular type of locomotive
he changed direction so going from steam
outline to diesel. In steam he got Moguls, all
Beauchamp Dickens on his Maples Garden Railway
three main geared locomotives, a large 2-8-8-2
Mallet and a K27 2-8-2 down to a LGB Tram
and LINZ locomotive. He got both the Dash 9
and Class 66 Diesel’s and then setup container
trains representing USA and UK modern container
trains. He also built a small bush tram and
some box cars to go with the diesel locomotives.
His most impressive build was the 4 truck Shay,
Limas Class 150 Shay. This consisted of a
standard 2 truck Shay with the extra Tender carrying
the extra trucks. He was helped by this
from a release of individual trucks by Bachmann.
We used to visit each other alternatively each
week and run our trains on each others layout.
This encouraged us too keep everything up to
scratch. I will greatly miss these running days
with my brother.
Lloyd Dickens
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