# Death of Railroad



## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

I have been fighting this problem for almost a year. I have a leak in my pond system which I have not been able to find.; I have an upper pond which runs into a lower pond through a stream about 20 feet long. For several years everything worked perfectly but suddenly last year I began to loose 2-3 hundred gallons of water each day. I adjusted the liners and checked for any obvious leaks. No leaks were found and the liner seemed to be in good condition. As my water bill began to mount, I finally turned the pump off. The stream quickly ran dry. Water collected in the lower pond and in the upperr pond.

To my suprise, I did not loose any water from either pond while the pump was off. Several weeks passed and the level in each pond remained constant. That made me think that the leak must be in the stream. Again I adjusted the liner. I applied silicone sealant to any place where one piece of liner met another. Thinking I had solved the problem, I turned the pump back on. Again over night the lower pond was drained of all its water. I quickly turned the pump off before it ran completely dry. I rechecked everything and could not find an obvious leak anywhere. Frustation began to mount. I spent hours trying to locate the leak with no success.

Finally, I took the dreaded step of digging up the pipe which fed water from the lower pond to the upper pond to see if there might be a leak in it.









This involved tearing up a large section of track and digging up all my landscaping over a large section of my railroad.








I carefully l;aid out the track so I could possibly reassemble it when everything was completed. I pressure tested the water line and left it over night, expecting I would find a loss of water. The next morning water in the pipe was at the same level as the day before. I kicked myself for destroying a whole section of my railroad for no reason, but I had started and I was going to find that leak if it killed me. 

Over the years landscaping had grown very nicely along the sides of the ponds and the stream. In fact, plants actually had begun to grow in the stream itself. I knew what I had to do.; I ripped everything out, removed every rock and piece of gravel from the stream bed, tore up the liner and checked for leaks in the streambed. I found only a couple of small areas of wet dirt which might have been the source of the leak, however after thinking about it, I realized that the small amount of water being lost here would not account for the amount I was loosing every day.








After replacing the liner in the streambed, I again turned the pump on. You gessed it. The next morning I had once again lost all the water from the lower pond. Now I was really feeling frustrated. The only other option I had was to tear the waterfall apart which took me most of one day. The more I tore things apart, the more I disrupted my track work. Again I carefully removed the track and laid it out so I could reassemble it again.








There did not seem to be any leaks around the waterfall, so I carefully rebuilt it which took the best part of another day. I extended the liner to about twice the area carefully making sure there was no possibility of water escaping around the rocks. Finally I was ready to turn the pump back on. 

At last success! Overnight showed no water loss. Apparently the water was being lost someplace around the waterfall, although I never did find exactly where it was going. The entire process changed the dynamics of my track plan. When I tried to reassemble the track nothing would fit anymore. Curves that followed the outline of the pond now ended up in the water. I had excess track left over which I was not able to fit back in. Where the track crossed the stream in two places suddenly the level was 4-5 inches higher than the other side. 

I may have a whole bunch of track and switches for sale soon.

Tomorrow I will make one more attempt at salvaging my railroad.

This is the story of my life. Things always end up being much more complicated than they should have been. Many of my do it yourself projects end up costing me twice what it would have cost to hire someone to do the job.

Amuway have a good laugh .

John


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## Mike Reilley (Jan 2, 2008)

John....Resurrection of a Railroad would have been a more appropriate title. Like you, I pulled up a heck of a lot of EPDM to find out where my water was going....and it just fixed itself. I still have no idea where the leak had been.


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## Ray Dunakin (Jan 6, 2008)

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Ouch! It's too bad you had to go through all that. Take a little break if necessary before giving up on the layout. If you can't get the RR back exactly the way it was, maybe you can work out a slightly different trackplan.


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

This morning the water level has dropped again. Not as much as before, but water is still going someplace and I CANNOT FIND OUT WHERE!.

it is so frustrating. I spent about four hours yesterday replacing track and it looks like I may have to take it up again.

Maybe I should drain both ponds and turn them into GRAVEL PITS. The stream could become a mini Grand Canyon.

But I love to hear the sound of water going over the falls. It is so refreshing and soothing.

John


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## tmejia (Jan 2, 2008)

Could there be a problem with the return line or drain (valve) line ?


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## tmejia (Jan 2, 2008)

Sound of water is nice


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## Brandon (Jul 6, 2011)

I can share some of the frustration with pond problems. I spent 3 years building my pond, close to a thousand hours, and a month after it was finished the air line to the bottom drain diffuser developed issues and had been completely shattered 5' down and 10' from the closest side of the pond where it is impossible to reach without hundreds of hours to fix, and it was over a year before I could finally figure that out what was actually wrong. Hours of rebuilding air pumps, buying new ones (as I could get some air out randomly and IF there was some water in the air line that would temporarily seal the fractures in the air pipe to allow the pipe to pressurize and release some air. It's now almost a year later, my formal looking pond has an ugly pipe and stone diffuser in the bottom of the pond but it works and the fish are happy and I'm happy enough and just ignore the eye sore. My point is if you're getting frustrated find something that will work for a while so you can think about the problem and problem solve over time rather than all at once. I figure in 10 years I could have a reason to tear up the liner and fix the pipe at the same time (animals or kids throwing something in pond that punctures the liner or what not). I also learned how to overcome my claustrophobia/tight space fear and that was some of the worst memories of the whole process. But hang in there, I've been there, ponds are a PIA. 

My thought would be to say to put some pipe from the upper pond to the lower that lets you bypass the stream liner, that way water still flows between ponds if you wonder if the stream is leaking. The 4" black corrugated pipe is like $50 for 100' at HD/lowes and could help trouble shoot the stream as the leak. Also consider doing your waterfall differently. I had wanted to have water cascading down rocks but after I ran into liner problems, possibly like yours, and leaks during construction I gave up with water flowing over the rocks/retaining wall. Rocks kept piercing the liner, even when 2 liners thick and I ran into problem after problem with the spray foam cracking and water flowing behind the rocks. I finally gave up and got a 3/4" thick 2'6"x18" piece of quartz and used it as a weir to create a 2'x3' sheet of water that falls into the pond and keeps water off the holy liner/rock retaining wall. There is still some splashing on the rock and the liner under the rocks and I'm sure a little loss but it's pretty minor. 

I also have an upper pond that has for lack of a better term, a faucet like fall that also creates imho the perfect 'water falling' sound. My 2'x3' water sheet is _extremely_ loud, easily 5x as loud as the cascading waterfall I had tried to do.


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

The water loss seems to be small enough now that I can add water every third day or so. I will give that a try for now.








This is a picture of the waterfall under repair.








This picture shows the waterfall almost done. I still have some liner to hide but I wanted to see where the splashing was occurring.








This a picture of my new English Springer Spanial puppy named Jadie. She has just had her 5 month birthday. She is an educated puppy, having graduated from puppy training class 2nd in the class. She can do sit, drop, come, heel, stay, shake, leave it and she has the certificate to prove it. She is a great help. She loves to help me dig holes and especially rake dirt. She gets her nose down right on the shovel or rake and growls and barks and bites as I am digging or raking. She helped with the pond repair also. She thought I had one too many fish in the pond so she took care of that with a mighty leap and a snap of her jaws the fish was history. Now that she knows there are fish in the pond it is very difficult to keep her out. I have bought a Wireless Fence which I will install after we return from our trip to Guatemala this week. We will be gone for 2 weeks. Jadie will return to stay with her mother while we are gone.

John


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I have 2 fountains... never underestimate the evaporation, nor how even a little splashing outside of the pool will lower the water levels. 

Greg


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## Mike Reilley (Jan 2, 2008)

Greg might be right. After finding no leaks anywhere....nor any moist soil under the EPDM that made the river, I began thinking about how the waterfall breaks up the water droplets in much smaller spray which makes it easier to be absorbed as humidity. 

My next plan is to install a Trough-o-matic to keep the lower pond full enough. I've read in many places that those things last and last and are dependable.


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

I agree splashing is a problem, but not to the tune of a hundred gallons a day.

Jadie drinks some when she is fishing but even that should not account for the huge water loss I was experiencing.

It is now down to a manageable amount.

Now begins the puzzle of putting the track back together. I do not have a rail bender so I had to carefully cut and piece different radii of curves and lengths of straight track to make it around the pond and still clear the rocks on either side. It was a nightmare to figure out.

When I pulled up the track I laid it out in the order it should go in but as I begin replacing it, I am finding sections that do not fit and pieces that are missing. Then there is the problem that the edges of the pond and stream are now about 5 inches higher than before so I have to figure out how to join the lower section with the now higher section. No room for an expansion of the loop. No room for a tunnel. This is a critical area to the operation of my railroad and unless I can solve the problems, I might as well pull all the track and take up stamp collecting as a hobby.

John


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I was reacting to your 24 Apr 2012 10:31 AM post... 

Saying you need to add water every 3rd day... 

So I have 2 fountains, one has a couple of "sprinklers" and the other is about a 3 foot wide sheet of water, and then about a 4 foot wide spillway... lots of moving surface area to evaporate... you can tell the changes when the humidity is different. 

Splashes can remove water pretty fast, if they are a continuous "leak" .

Good luck on the rebuild! 


Greg


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

We have a close association with a Guy that does nothing but water features. He is very good at what he does. It all seems to be a fairly simple process to build you own pond and stream. But he spends a great deal of his time repairing what some one else has built. Some by big name landscapers that build ponds. My best advice to do it yourselfers is to bring the liner much higher than seems to be needed, 6-8 inches above the water level. Most leaks are found at a edge where the liner is just too low. Also, a seam should never be just siliconed. It will not hold. There is a process to seam rubber liner to make a proper water tight joint.


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## GN_Rocky (Jan 6, 2008)

From my experiance with ponds, waterfalls and such. My Mothers pond was losing water too years back. Her set up was a simple one. A concrete Koi pond with a waterfall spilling in to the pond on one side. The pump was a submersible right under the waterfall in the pond, so there was little outside the pond. So after working on the "mountain" that the waterfall was on, we found a leak. It was a very small razor like slit in the rubber mat under the mountain. You had to look real close to see it was there. So we had to redo the entire mountain this time with double thickness rubber mat like a couple semi truck tire inner tubes thick to line the bottom. That did the trick and the leak was stopped. But man was it alot of work to tear down and rebuild that little mountain !!!

As far as the "Death" of your RR... 
Look at it as being in hibernation. Wheather you keep or get rid of the water feature, the basis of the RR will still be there. My trains were boxed (most of them) for over 6 years after the war with the association brown shirts at the condo complex until we moved up here away from the brown shirt association fatherland. Now my trains have been reborn and my new layout is bigger and indoors in climate control. So don't worry, you'll be running again much sooner than I was and you don't have to deal with brown shirts either !!! Check the mats again under your water features. The 'vaporation might be the issue too if your in a far southern area.

Good luck !! 
Rocky


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## paintjockey (Jan 3, 2008)

When I built my water feature (the second time) I talked to the guy down the road who is a land designer (landscaper who went to college). From what i remember this is what he told me. 
If you use a flexible pond liner you should put sand down then a pad under the liner, especially if you use rocks. 
Don't use silicone on seams, it will actually eat some types of liners. They make a product to seal liners. 
Water falls make your water evaporate at an alarming rate. 
If you have a fountain, make sure it sprays into the pond. 
Plants are very generous. Any plant that touches the water will wick it out and give it to their neighbor and then they give it to their neighbor..... 
Keep your pumps and lines accessable, because once you can't get to them is when you'll have to. 
-when I built my waterfall I lost alot of water from splash too, to the tune of a gallon an hour and my water fall is very small. Readjusting and making sure all the rocks pointed towards the water and the liner came up high enough to catch splach cut it back to almost nothing. I probly lose a gallon a day now. it sucked, but it was a learning experience. Good luck on your rebuild and keep us posted. 

Terry 

Terry


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for all the advice.

I went back and looked at the waterfall. There was a lot of splash there. I rearranged a couple of rocks to cut it down and direct it more towards the pond. I will wait a day or two to see if that helps.

Tomorrow we leave for Guatamala. I will disconnect the pump while we are gone as a safety practice.

John


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## dieseldude (Apr 21, 2009)

Here's an easy test to determine if your water loss is due to splashing from the waterfall: Instead of placing the pump line in the waterfall, place it directly in the upper pond for a day or two (in essence, bypassing the splashing waterfall). If there is no noticeable water loss, then the problem is probably at the waterfall. If there is still noticeable water loss, then the problem is downstream. Hope this helps. 


-Kevin.


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