# What Comes First...?



## SoCalStu (Dec 27, 2007)

First time doing an outdoor layout. The yard also needs a lot of landscaping. Is it recommended to do the track first and then the landscaping or visa versa?


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Really depends on if you are doing on the ground, or raised, put plants last. 

Do you mean landscaping = plants, or landscaping = contouring ground, etc. 

I have a lot of track really tucked into some tight places, so the planning and measuring went first... 

Hardscaping second 

Main plants (placed so as not to obstruct track) next 

Then preparation of roadbed and final adjustments to plan... 

Track and more plants now that more is firmed up 

Final surfacing of track, movement of a few tracks and plants. 

Regards, Greg


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

I think the first thing should be what "story" do you want it to tell? Do you want to model a railroad, or do you want a delightful surprise in the garden? Do you want a mainline style, modern rail line with bid, sweeping curves and long runs? Or do you want a narrow gage logging operation with lots of tight turns? A european line? The Old West? 


My wife and I more or less just started throwing track down in an existing garden. We worked around what was already there. It works really well as an attractive garden feature. But if I were to do it over, I'd plan both together. And to do that, I'd settle on a "story." Right now, the story our line tells is about more or less about branch lines in standard gage in the 40s and 50s. I'd probably stick with that, but I often think I'd like to completely redo the whole thing. 


So I'd just suggest that you figure out what story you are going to tell. The rocks and plants and landscape wll flow from that.


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## cmjdisanto (Jan 6, 2008)

First off....welcome to the hobby. Next..... I have to ask........Do you want landscape with a layout or a layout with Landscape? We have a garden with a train idea for ours. As far as story telling goes.......this iis one aspect but necessarilly a required approach. Sometimes it's fun to have just a train in the yard too. 

If it were me....... and after learning the mistakes of 3 layouts..........I'd come up with a laypout plan. Then a landscape plan and work the two into each other. That's better said than done since in the case of our latest layout....we had to work around featuress we liked that were already in place but also needed to utilize structures, like a 35ft custom built trestle and many pieces of custom cut track from our previous location. Plus I've always employeed the "throw everything up in the air and see where it lands" approach. We've also had to do tree work while the layout is in place, we've moved a ton of old, existing plants to make way for new, moved a mountain of dirt around for drainage that never seems to do the same thing year to year......... I've taken apart and rebuilt 3 sections of the layout because, umm, errr, uhhh, I didn't think about .............. But then it may have been a frustration for a half second yet that's some of the fun. Seeing what you could do differen t and then making the change. Sort of fits in with real life rails. Our back yard is a fine example of that. From 1860 until 1968 it had a railroad. Then Seaboard Systems rerouted the line and......you get the picture 

Decide if your track power, battery or both.....Steam falls under the battery since no power is needed for running. I'd probably choose to run both because you can't always expect a visitor to have battery or live steam. We run MTS and can run isolated normal track power simultaneously with the MTS and Battery but the majority of my stuff is battery. I't still be a good idea to bury conduit large enough to fish wires thru for lights, signals, track power connections and whatever else you may want to add down the line. Easier now than when you have an established landscape and or hardscapes. 

It's been said a thousand times here in the past but build in the largest diameter curves you can right from the beginning. Try and reduce grades with fill or terracing ideas. After saying that.....exactly how much area do you have to work with? 

Terraine has a great deal to do with planning too........Are you dealing with large trees and exposed roots? If this is the case, then you will probably be better doing a raised bed. I mentioned drainage earlier but it should be more specifically called water run-oof. You have to deal with this or you'll have nothing but problems with not only you yard and layout but worse.....your house. 

Do you want to model a layout that has some appearance of realism of construction or do you wish to have it on a platform like some choose to. Not good or bad either way.....just personal preferance. Personally, I like to use a stagging table to load locos and stock while having the layout on ground with more realistic roadbeds. I use either narrow gauge at street level or raised like a mainline. 

There's a ton of knowledge in exisitng layout threads here. I guess it all comes down to how you want to approach things. Pick something your comfirtable with. Plan or not or half and half.....you'll have fun either way.

Been a while since I actually thought of some of this stuf so I've not hit on so much.....but I'm sure someone will pick up the slack.


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## coyote97 (Apr 5, 2009)

Hi SoCalStu (is that for "socalled Student"???),

my own layout is a mixture of both ways. I had a garden with a shape and had to put in the RR in any way. So there were places where i´ve done easy to imagine how all should be and there were places where i could not imagine anything before a track crossed the scene.

So i built some parts before i layed down the track, and others after that with a helping construction of latices and boards to hold the track.

Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages.

without track u can always work free, with bigger tools like shovels or pikes. But its more difficult to "dig in the right direction", so for the free work, u need a good plan and measurement. And a way to measure while diging. Like that u always have a clue where u have to go.

With track layed down, its much more difficult to work, but easier to go on with your plan.

A good "way in the middle" is to lay down 4 or 5 feet of track on boards, then "landscaping" that piece. Like that u can work free from one side and relate to the layoutplan at the other side.


Depending on what sort of layout u are planing, i suggest (hardly...







) to make a basic measurement of your garden before planing and building, and set your whole planing on that measurement. And the most forgotten thing therefore is the most important:
dont forget the heights!!

There is no use of a plan for what u have to dig a 4 feet cut or on the other side when u have to build a 5 feet trestle bridge in a R1 diameter (that gives no bridge in the end...just a mixed up chaos of latices).

A good tip in the end: not running into it.
Viewing, listening and deep thinking are work worth while! U haven´t to invent the wheel as new, take the ideas other worked out by now!

For some pics of my layout, take a look at www.g-scale-structures.de in the "pictures" section.


Greetings

Frank


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

I'd say in your case I'd plan and lay the track first. From there you will know what landscaping you will need to make the yard look nice and work with the RR. Later RJD


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## kormsen (Oct 27, 2009)

Is it recommended to do the track first and then the landscaping or visa versa? 
minority record: 

throw down your track, where ever you think it might fit. 
let a train run. 
where it is too bumpy shovel some dirt under it. 
then watch it. 
while watching it, the ideas should come by themselves. (i could lay a curve round that tree over there... - if i make a siding just here, it could be a nice place for a station...) 

that would be my aproach. 
simply because i know about very few people, who hit it with their first plan. 

one can plan for years. 
(but in the meanwhile there is no reason, not to play.)


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

You bet, Kormsen!

Get a train running, then plan while you play.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

The egg... 

Have you bought all your track? The way you stated the question leads me to believe you've had RR's in the smaller scales... There are two trains of thought outside; 1. Some just want to see trains running, 2. Operations, running a railroad with switching moves and perhaps a timetable etc... 

If you favor the first I'd lay track and experiment, slopes are decieving, it's hard to see the grade when standing on it! My first oval still sits where I placed it, however bridges and a trestle have raised the lower end 4 inches to ease the grade... 
If you favor the second, I'd do some planning, but I must warn you that the track is not actually the diameter it is marked as. Example the Aristo 10' diameter track is closer to 9'6" so allow fudge room... Unless you are planning on using flex track and then you make it fit as you go.... 

There is another consideration; which era? Older trains had smaller locos and equipment, thus tighter curves are manageable, however if you favor mainline running with large diesels then a minimum of 8 -10' diameter is your starting off place... I run a 4-4-0 and a 2-8-0 and my minimum diameter is 8' on spurs, 10' mainline. Adding a simple reverse loop has doubled the size of the railroad, these larger curves really eat up the available space.... as do grades. figuring a 3% grade is a general maximum that's 3" climb on a run of 100", so it takes over 8' to rise 3" and over under clearances are on average 10.5" plus structure (the bridge timbers, etc....), so to climb that much you'll need a run of aprox 40'... 

I'd rake out a general track layout, put down some track and run some trains, quickly you'll see where modifications are necessary. Soon you'll be able to do a general plan in your head and can start there. 
Welcome to a fantastic hobby and a great place to meet fellow hobbyists. 

John


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I hit it with my first plan, but the plan was to stuff track wherever it would fit! 

RR-Track software helped my "shoehorning"... first track was laid on mounded bark chips! 

Once the track was pretty much level, would pull out a foot of bark chips and replace with ballast, never removed track. 

Kind of goofy, but it worked... 

Regards, Greg


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

I would do the "heavy landscaping" (large foilage and earthwork contouring), then install the trackwork with the miniature stuff in mind.

If you are in Southen California, you are welcome to come by and see our garden railroad. We are in Orange County above Tustin.

http://tortoiseandlizardbash.com/


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

It's nice to have your track elevated some off the ground, looks better and is not so rough on your knees/back.


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## cmjdisanto (Jan 6, 2008)

Posted By cmjdisanto on 14 Jan 2010 10:08 PM 
First off....welcome to the hobby. Next..... I have to ask........Do you want landscape with a layout or a layout with Landscape? We have a garden with a train idea for ours. As far as story telling goes.......this is one aspect but not necessarilly a required approach. Sometimes it's fun to have just a train in the yard too. 

If it were me....... and after learning the mistakes of 3 layouts..........I'd come up with a laypout plan. Then a landscape plan and work the two into each other. That's better said than done since in the case of our latest layout....we had to work around featuress we liked that were already in place but also needed to utilize structures, like a 35ft custom built trestle and many pieces of custom cut track from our previous location. Plus I've always employeed the "throw everything up in the air and see where it lands" approach. We've also had to do tree work while the layout is in place, we've moved a ton of old, existing plants to make way for new, moved a mountain of dirt around for drainage that never seems to do the same thing year to year......... I've taken apart and rebuilt 3 sections of the layout because, umm, errr, uhhh, I didn't think about .............. But then it may have been a frustration for a half second yet that's some of the fun. Seeing what you could do differen t and then making the change. Sort of fits in with real life rails. Our back yard is a fine example of that. From 1860 until 1968 it had a railroad. Then Seaboard Systems rerouted the line and......you get the picture 

Decide if your track power, battery or both.....Steam falls under the battery since no power is needed for running. I'd probably choose to run both because you can't always expect a visitor to have battery or live steam. We run MTS and can run isolated normal track power simultaneously with the MTS and Battery but the majority of my stuff is battery. I't still be a good idea to bury conduit large enough to fish wires thru for lights, signals, track power connections and whatever else you may want to add down the line. Easier now than when you have an established landscape and or hardscapes. 

It's been said a thousand times here in the past but build in the largest diameter curves you can right from the beginning. Try and reduce grades with fill or terracing ideas. After saying that.....exactly how much area do you have to work with? 

Terraine has a great deal to do with planning too........Are you dealing with large trees and exposed roots? If this is the case, then you will probably be better doing a raised bed. I mentioned drainage earlier but it should be more specifically called water run-oof. You have to deal with this or you'll have nothing but problems with not only you yard and layout but worse.....your house. 

Do you want to model a layout that has some appearance of realism of construction or do you wish to have it on a platform like some choose to. Not good or bad either way.....just personal preferance. Personally, I like to use a stagging table to load locos and stock while having the layout on ground with more realistic roadbeds. I use either narrow gauge at street level or raised like a mainline. 

There's a ton of knowledge in exisitng layout threads here. I guess it all comes down to how you want to approach things. Pick something your comfirtable with. Plan or not or half and half.....you'll have fun either way.

Been a while since I actually thought of some of this stuf so I've not hit on so much.....but I'm sure someone will pick up the slack.


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi Stu 

Welcome to the wacky world of Large Scale Railroading according to MLS. Generally we all agree to disagree. 

So here is my take on you question. 

If you have a level area or at least semi level, come up with a general design of what you want, lay the track and run some trains. Seldom does a layout look like the plan or operate the way you had planned, so this will allow you to work any kinks out before you get heavy into landscaping. If you want an elevated area, raise the track and support it with boards, bricks, cement blocks or even boxes to determine what you like. If your layout area has a ditch or low area you want a bridge, set a 2x6 across that spot. 

Now if you're installing your layout on a bank or steeply graded area, you're going to have to put more thought into what you want and prepare a lot of the ground before you can actually lay any track. On steeply graded ground, you can dig out trenches to make canyons or tunnels. 

Either way, expect to make changes. Even if you pour cement road bed, you can always tear up sections and repour new. 

Most importantly, HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Randy


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## cmjdisanto (Jan 6, 2008)

Okay....that was weird....the second post of mine as a quote????????? Not sure how that happened but I do apologize none the less. Actually.....coulda swore I hit edit si if a moderator would kindly delete beth the second post and this one.....I'd appreciate it.


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

The chicken. Definitely the chicken.


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