Yesterday I received some photos from a friend (forum member) who had been in correspondence with Nicole some time back. It shows her Garden RR which I was unaware that she had!
He gave me permission to post her note to him along with the photos. What an interesting and talented lady.
Alex, did your inquiries ever produce anything new from her family?
Don't know who the fella is in one of these... Was she married?
Hope you enjoy these as much as we have 
Oct 02, 2013 From Nicole:
Sorry for the delay, but it took a while to find some decent photographs of the construction and early phases of my garden layout.
Since these photographs were taken I have extended it a bit more, and re-aligned the track in a couple of places to improve running and operational aspects.
The wiring is very simple. The transformer and LGB/DCC base live indoors, and the cables to the track are buried (In a protective plastic pipe.) under the bricks/paving until they emerge at a junction box I built in the garden. From here the power is simply distributed underground to several points on the track. I have very long leads on my hand controllers, so I can sit outside and run the trains, even though the electronics are all indoors.
Maintenance is very easy. Once a year I trim back any plants that have encroached upon the right-of-way, clear any debris from the winter, attend to any re-ballasting that may be needed and then spray the right-of-way with a good persistent weed-killer. I then use an LGB track cleaning locomotive to bring a lovely shine to the rail tops, and that's it.
I normally run the track cleaning loco for a while at the start of every operating session to keep the tracks clean, and remove any bird poo or other unknown substances that may have coated the rails. I use LGB track throughout, and this has proved to be perfect for this climate. It even looks better each year as the brass gains a lovely patina.
The construction phase. Good drainage and a firm trackbed foundation is a must. So I had my gardener dig the trenches (Approx 6-9 inches deep.) and fit any needed retaining walls etc. before building up the trackbed. This was done using 3 different sizes of gravel. large at the base layer, medium for the middle layer, and fairly small for the top couple of inches.
I hope that the above is of help, and doesn't scare you away from building a garden layout. A lot of the civil engineering work that I had done is not strictly needed, but I like to build things to last, and unless it gets destroyed in the meantime, my trackbed should not need any more than minor maintenance for the next hundred years or so. ��
Have fun.
Nicole
