# depth of ballast



## leftyfretguy (Jan 2, 2008)

I am slowly (painfully slow) building a raised garden bed and need to get the load of ballast out of the drive way by the weekend (city law about parking on street). I have decided to float my track, what is the ideal depth for a trench? I had thought 4 inches but as the soil is relatively fresh - its all been placed there in the last 4 months, it would not be hard for me to dig much deeper than that. I run live steam so prefectly flat and staying that way is the ultimate goal. I live in a zone 5/6 if that helps. The bed is roughly 16" to 20" high.
Is there a depth that would be too deep? I was thinking of doing a 9" to 12" trench but wondered if that was overkill.
thanks,
Matt


----------



## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

Four inches is plenty of depth but the soil down well before adding the gravel. A sledge hammer works well. Using a spun nylon/polyester landscape cloth between the soil and gravel is a good idea. It will help reduce the gravel settling into the soil. 

-Brian


----------



## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Depends on the lay of your land as to how you will place the ballast. In my case I did not dig a trech to put the ballast in it is just laid on the ground about two inches of sub grade then ballast the track and your go to go. Later RJD


----------



## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By altterrain on 28 Oct 2009 06:17 PM 
Four inches is plenty of depth but the soil down well before adding the gravel. A sledge hammer works well. Using a spun nylon/polyester landscape cloth between the soil and gravel is a good idea. It will help reduce the gravel settling into the soil. 

-Brian 

that should be "but tamp the soil down well". Too late to edit!







.







.









-Brian


----------



## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

I use concrete road bed. It is about 2 to 3 inches deep When I prepair the soil below the concrete it use this 












It is a 5 LB mall with a flat plate weleded to it. I use it to tamp the soild where the road bed is going to be. 

I also have a 8 inch square tamper I got at Home Depot in the Garden department.

I use that when I am doing doulbe main line. 

You may want to check into one of those.

Once your soil below your Road bed is firm it should stay pretty solid.


----------



## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

I also have a 8 inch square tamper I got at Home Depot in the Garden department. 

Along with the tamper, I got a 4" wide trenching shovel from H-D, which turned out to be perfect for cutting a 4" deep slot for a single-track. I walked and jumped in the trench to pack it down before filling with crusher fines, then I walked on it again, refilled it, and started tamping the whole area. 

I had a relatively new raised bed, and you can expect (a) subsidence after the first year's rains and (b) ballast washouts. You have to go round every spring with a bucket of ballast and repack under the track where it subsides. I use a small 'trowel' supplied with the spackling compound. For bigger jobs I borrowed my son's archeology trowel with a small diamond-shaped blade.


----------



## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

JJ in your part of the country I could not even envision using concrete. Later RJD


----------



## Doug C (Jan 14, 2008)

I ended up doing a min. 3" trench (up to 6" bjkfilled with 7mm crush) This was also a "loose" situation as my entire railway area is backfilled to 'grade' with a alpine mix (after the majority of lawn/sod was 'cut' out) but not before covering the previous soil with a minimum 4 sheets of newsprint which tends to be free and better than majority of any landscape fabric on the market. 
You're definitely going to have spot settling of your layout no matter how much tamping you're in the mood for 

My timing with my build meant it was allowed to settle overwinter due to yearly 'freeze-up', resulting in neglibile settling the last 7 yrs. 

Up here, highways depts. used to allow for settling of their gradework over the winter and then in the spring come back to do final pre-paving gradework and subsequent final paving that second construction season. Nowadays I see a lot of built-in speed bumps and roller coaster city/hwy streets and roads caused by the fact they graded and pave all the same season. Even got some sinkholes tooo !  

Luckily, we don't suffer sinkholes on our railways 'cause our trains are not that heavy . . . . doug c


----------



## George Schreyer (Jan 16, 2009)

I have sandy soil that packs hard after it gets wet. In places, I dug the whole area out 6" deep and replaced with larger crushed rock, then ballasted over that. In other areas, the ballast went on over level ground, maybe as little as an inch deep. I used weed block beneath all the rock to prevent mixing of the sand and rock. 

I did have to reballast every year for a couple of years, but the need became less frequent every time. Now I only do touch up ballasting to keep the track level. I do glue the sloped edges to prevent erosion of the ballast but the track floats free between the glued edges.


----------



## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

At one point I remember hearing of folks who would dig the trench deep enough and add in Perforated pipe to the trench for drainage. Is this still a recommended practice? 

Chas


----------



## Tom Bowdler (Jan 3, 2008)

My garden railway was raised above grade so I didn't feel pipe in the trench was necessary. After filling to the required height behind a dry laid rock retaining wall I dug to a depth of 6" give or take and filled the trench with #2 gravel and tamped it. My Aristo sectional track (some curves bent to different radii) was placed on top then 1A gravel was used as ballast and to level the track. I tried to keep the top of the ballast above the surrounding terrain as the prototype would have. I'm also live steam and it worked well for 12 years in western New York. 
Go for it, 
Tom


----------



## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

I did the perforated pipe thing on my line in Rochester. The thing to watch out for there is to make sure the pipe is deep enough to where it's not going to work up through the freeze/thaw cycles. I have no idea how deep that is, but I can tell you it's _not_ 6". Most places I didn't have any trouble, but I had a few stretches on the line where the bugger pipe worked its way up, raising the track. The only way to remedy that is to dig out the pipe or raise the rest of the track. Fortunately with floating track, raising the rest of the track is fairly simple. 

Later, 

K


----------



## Ron Hill (Sep 25, 2008)

My railroad is ground level, but I made the roadbed 6" deep and 16" wide for double track and 8" wide for single track. I placed a weed barrier in the trench before placing the limestone down for added protection. I live in 7b to 8a zones. 
Ron


----------



## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

And, of course, your pipe needs to drain.


----------

