# Small Garden Railroad



## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Hello!
Last year I re-started with my 1:22,5 scale railroad again after stashed it away for years because of poor running qualities.
But lucky for me I came across this great website and decided to start again after reading some great articles here like the "Concrete Roadbed , Not as Hard as One Thinks" by Marty Cozads. Marty, thanks for posting that article; it was a great help.
I chose to make a steady start with concrete undergrounds. No more washed away rail after a heavy rain. No more weeds between them! 

Also I'm switsching to RC controled trains. This gives much better results.

Also first ; a flashback to spring last year; pouring the concrete roadbeds.





































































































RR crossing. The only remaining building from my last outdoor railraod (I've renovated the building during winter, I'll post pictures soon!).




















Extensions are easy to make:


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

PART II

The turntable extension was build last autumn but I can't find the pictures at this moment..
The turntable is nothing fancy! Just hand operated. It's located at the border so it is easy to reach. Low tech is also low maintenance!
The turntable deck is from plastic, painted as wood.





















Some early sunny april afternoon gave me the change to start with the platforms. 
My platforms are made from concrete as well. 
The little stones at the sides are poured from molds that came with those plaster buildingkits you find in toystores. Like these:












The stones form the sides of the platform. The space between will be filled with concrete.


The general idea:























Starting with the mid platform:






















Checking the space between train and platform.












Starting with the stations platform:






















Filling with concrete:












This is how it will look like! Now on with the station itself. This will take a while but I'll try to keep you up to date!











BALLAST:
I've ballested with 2-5 mm. stones. I wanted to fix the ballast in place because still I remember my last railroad from years back because of the grid I still find in the sand. I want the ballast to be steady, not washed away by rain, shoved by animals or eaten by little kids...

I read about mixing ballast with concrete or cement and sprinkle water over it afterwards. I used this method but perhaps I did not mix it good enough... When dry the cement was powder again, the concrete was more a haze over the grit. I resprinkled it again with a solution of water, PVA glue (water resistend) and a drop of dishwash liwuid (to make the water flow nicely). The parts were I used this solution the stones stay firmly in there place, even when toughing it. Hope this will stay that way! 

Well, this is as far as I came with the roadbeds and ballast. 
Hope you enjoyed the pictures!!!!


Paul


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Nice railway Paul, I look forward to more pictures!


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## placitassteam (Jan 2, 2008)

Looks like a great start on your railroad!! One thing I would caution about glueing down your ballast is leave space for the rail to move. I tried glueing my ballast the way you describe and it restrained the track so well that when the rail expanded it started pulling the track apart. I had to dig up all the glued ballast and redo it. What I have now is loose ballast around the ties and the ballast along each side glued. That forms a barrier to keep the loose ballast in place but lets the track move whe it expands and contracts. I don't know where you are but here in New Mexico we have had up to 3 feet of snow at one time, temperatures ranging from around 10deg.F to near 100, and sometimes an inch of rain in one hour. My layout has been in place for over 5 years and I have very little maintenance to do each spring. Hope this helpfull. Keep posting your progress, lots of people will be watching even if you don't hear from them.


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## Engineercub (Oct 18, 2008)

That is really nice Paul, I'd like to see pics of the full layout if you can. Great job! 

-Will


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

Good start, should hold up well.


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## GG (Jan 1, 2009)

Like it... 

If I tried this at ground level, I'd be .... very stiff to say the least. 

And ground level layouts add real impact and reality to a garden railroad. 


Great work and very creative. 

Thank you for sharing. 


gg


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

Great Job Paul 
I'm glad you shared that its not as hard as one thinks. 
I love your idea of the jig stones. Never thought about that.


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Thanks for the nice replies and comments people! 

Placitassteam, thanks for the head up on the expanding and schrinking of the tracks. 
I glued the ballast on a extrordanary warm Easter day (20 C - last year we had wet snow...) and hope this will be a good average temperature. In the summer it is almost never warmer than 30 C. But the rail can get very hot in bright sunlight so it is definatly something to keep in mind. I dont have glued all the ballast yet so I try the way you described for the rest of the track. Now I just wait and see what the summer brings. 

Will, here are two pictures of the railroad last year that give a good impression of the full layout. It's about 2x4 meter in a sort of triangular shape. Future extention is possible, for example when the rabbit leaves this world (you can see it's cage / run in the background). The other part of the garden is a small field of gras. When our youngest grows older this part of the garden can be used as well (I have the wives blessing allready!) 
But first I focus on this part and try to finnish it complete before go any further. The plan is to make it looks like a French provincial style railroad, mid 50's era. 




















Paul


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

Nice work! 

I love your little turntable. 

Welcome to the dark side


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

That is really nice--well done. I like the small size. Whan I started out I mad the mistake, I think, of wanting to go as big as possible. In retrospect I think it would have been better to go smaller--smaller equipment, smaller curves. Your railroad looks really charming


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Looks nice. Some time smaller is better. Of course it helped keep the cost down. Later RJD


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## placitassteam (Jan 2, 2008)

Paul, I didn't realize just how small your layout is. Given the small size you probably won't have the problem I refered to. My layout is 100 feet long so there are some pretty long runs. On a hot day some of the curves actually move sideways as much as 1/2 inch.


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Thanks again everybody 

Torby; glad you liked the turntable! I found some pic's of the construction. I used a deep IKEA plate (that is, I think it is a plate) with the right size for the turntable pit. A round piece of wood and a piece of track are the base. I drilled a hole in the middle of the plate as a sort of slot for a little metal pin in the middle underneath the turntable. 
Unfortunatly no pictures of the assembly of the deck. Actually it was very simple; I used pieces of wood the same height as the sleepers. I covered the whole with styreen sheet. The wood structure is carved in the sheet. Finnished it with paint in wood like colors. 



















Underground is concrete, about one inch lower as the original trackbed. Than I positioned the IKEA plate in place and filled the rest with concrete to the right level: 




























Sorry for the blurry pic; it was evening... The plastic foil is to cover the drying concrete against a sudden rain. The rain does influence the structure and appearence of the concrete's surface. 

placitassteam; I'm relieved to read that the problem of the moving rail is probably not an issue on my layout. I just glue the ballast and wait what summer bring. (I hope the problem occur; that means I have a good summer!!!









Paul


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