In this day of high finance massive takeovers and consolidating markets the Dorchester Railway Company has reached the end of the line. My own Dr. Beeching has decreed that the tracks must come up and the garden must be returned to its proper state. She has decided to move and I suppose I should be grateful that apparently I am moving with her.

There was a little lump in my throat as the buildings have been taken up and stored apart from the Tuxcraft castle which proudly stands defiant like some ancient Norman Keep.

The next task is the track, here after fruitful discussions between the governing bodies and the railway workforce I have been allowed to keep the small analogue track that runs round the pond. It sets off the pond nicely apparently! The rest is doomed including the viaduct.  I am told that after the garden is sorted the whole house must be decluttered and painted magnolia. The House Doctor has a lot to answer for!

I understand that Wickes shares are tumbling on the news that I will not be purchasing any pea shingle for a while. I am sure that in the not too distant future one of the big quarry companies will be eyeing up my small garden with a view to excavating the vast amounts of shingle already laid. Does anybody have the answer as to where it disappears to when its laid? Each year I top it up.

I have spent the last ten years gradually levelling and terracing my sloping garden into some reasonably suitable inclines for the trains (although some visitors in the past think a rack railway would have been more appropriate), cutting back the undergrowth, removing the myriad   of weeds and gradually creeping the boundaries of the railway into no man’s land. That should probably read no woman’s land. A little siding here and there hidden by the bedding plants and conifers quite often goes unnoticed in the grand scheme of things.

There must be miles of electric cable of one sort or another under the garden. Some even I have forgotten what they were used for after all the changes over the years. I must definitely make up a wiring diagram in the future and colour code the wires to give me a clue where they go. In the past any old bit cable has been pressed into service if it’s long enough. If not two bits will do.

My little granddaughter ran her Playmobile engine and I ran my Carodoc in a fond farewell to the upper track. It is a good job that the pond line will at least prevent me suffering too many withdrawal symptoms.

The future means that I shall have to renegotiate the new territory piece by piece and plant by plant. I can only hope that is a bit flatter and squarer than our current garden. Wielding the spade becomes just that bit harder year by year. Is there an antidote to the blue pills? I could do with a couple of elephants to help out as I have found offspring (The Boss a.k.a. Jason) tend to disappear when there is any hard work about.

As I begin the task of removing some of the track I recollect what a really good year in railway terms this has been. The open days here and the visits I have been able make to other layouts much better than mine. The shows that have produced some new ideas and not forgetting some of the great characters I have met.

The saddest part was losing Welsh Tony, one of those great characters and an inspiration to all who met him. Luckily I have an old engine I bought from him several years ago and my happy memories of him come flooding back as it trundles round the track. I will definitely be getting an engine nameplate ordered during the coming year.

Roger 2007.