A straight track through the middle of the rented piece of land with a short siding running towards the creek was the beginning of my railway adventure in 1981. With a platform lorry from the former Schorndorf tile works we operated a "garden-railway" - pushing the lorry uphill and coming back by gravity - transporting everything heavy from dung to water - but also our crop and children. When I purchased my first loco (Gmeinder 4460) in 1983, the eternal ups and downs rapidly became boring and I planned a track layout of about 120m running around the "usable" part of the garden (almost half of the lot is a steep hillside). In 1984 I could buy the piece of land and started work: With the help of an old borrowed Schmidag mini-caterpillar I ripped off 15 cm of soil and filled in gravel, so laying the track alongside the creek and the two station tracks with their points was easy. Curving the rails for the "upper loop" with a 13m diameter was another thing, but here I adapted a bending machine found at a former cartwright's in France. I shouldn't have given back the caterpillar that quickly, because when I started the construction of the downhill section a year later, its owner had died and his heirs had sold all the material for scrap - so I had to continue manually. This is why I lay the somewhat stronger rails with iron sleepers directly on the roughly smoothed ground, somehow the traditional way The lack of space led to the solution of ending the two station tracks on a transborder which allows to shift the engines to the second track on which they can go back to the other end of the train. The switches here are spring-operated, which makes this manoeuvre easy and quick. On busy days, two trains can be operated. Because of the gradients (4% along the creek and 5% on the hill side) the trains always turn anti-clockwise. The track in this original form was opened in 1985 on the occasion of a village fair and on the 150th anniversary of the Baden-Württemberg State Railways. In 1987 I added two sidings which are now partly inside the light-railway-style loco shed which I built in 1998/90. The same year I was given the undulated iron DB shelter which had served as office building of the former Schleißweiler stop, the donator's grandfather having been the last DB official before its closure in 1951. During the repairs of the "ice cellar", the crew dug off the area of a third siding - for a crate of beer. The concrete L-stones for the retaining wall were carried on the spot by rail! The tiny foundations of the transborder had given way over the years, so I renovated it completely in 1999. This time I placed it on a 10 cm layer of gravel and original standard gauge sleepers. The space between two sleepers allowed the construction of an inspection and repair pit, an installation which I would really recommend to everybody who owns this type of rolling stock. Only recently (June 2001) I laid a further siding to store my 4 dumping trucks. They serve as static rain collectors but can easily be put into service with a turning plate. Projects in a near future: First of all I will widen the upper bend and put in on a lower level, especially for my steam engine. A point is already in place, its left branch announces the new bend with a diameter of 18 metres, the straight branch will be another 7 m siding. The phone box will have to be dislocated, for it stands directly on projected line. The removed earth will be used for a wide level area for grilling or putting up a big party tent. There will also be a new and larger pool downhill between the greenhouse and the triple point. On the same occasion I will lay this portion of track regularly, i.e. on a15 cm gravel bed, water drainage and wooden sleepers. And the rest of the track will always need a little arranging here and there....