# My new layout "Ronja Springs" to "Feddyville"



## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Hello,
since we moved to our new home three years ago, we've a nice garden section behind the house and my wish was, to build a garden railroad there. Unfortunately it's not a big space, but it would work for some nice "playground" for my trains.
First some details about the topography. The property is located on a slope, so the garden is setup on different levels. So I had to deal with some tricks, which finally also brings some benefits. The main railroad area will be in the upper garden. Due to the highed difference between the upper and lower garden, I can't run the trains on ground level on both. So I take advantage of a raised station at the lower end of layout, between 3 and 2' above the ground. The grades on the main line are limited to 3.5%, while I look forward to work with up to 5.5% on logging spurs. All curves are minimum 4' radius. Here's the latest plan of the whole situation. In the meantime, I skipped the second terminous station and will go for a return loop at the end of the line. Not shown yet are logging spurs.








Starting point of the layout is the lower station, which is mounted to the wooden fence. This station will have some sidings for cars and switching and a long passing track for 11' long trains.








The layout itself will be designed as "operating layout" so there's no continous running planed. This comes due to the fact that I like operating more than watching. And there are some continous-style garden railroads around which I can use for this purpose. So I decided to focus on the operation-part, which are missing on the roundy-rounders.
The construction began some week ago during the summer vacation. The raised section of the railroad is set on a wooden base construction, made from weather resistant wood. A cover from roofing felt may help to keep moisture and water away from the wooden construction.








Ready for track laying...








The left portion features two stagging tracks. Each will hold 4 30' cars. The short track along the front edge is a tieup-track for live steam locos and can be used as caboose track as well.








The right portion of the station holds the passing loop and a siding for team track and industries.








That's for now. Actually I work on the station building. The sanding house and water tower are already down as you can see in this short preview of a train arriving at "Ronja Springs".








Regards, Gerd


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

I like it!

Later,

K


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## denray (Jan 5, 2008)

wow please keep us posted, this looks like a great way to stay off the ground
Dennis


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Hello folks,
time to show you some details on the structures visible in the short video clip above.
The water tank is build from a Piko-kit and represents a "Rio Grande"-style water tank.








It's all plastic with some metal chains and weights for the spout. It's even possible to make it functional for real water, but I did not on my model.








The spout can be folded down, while the counter weights will hold it in an uprigt position. Here I glued the feeder pipe in place. That's why the whole tank sits upside down.








Actually, the water tank is NOT glued to the top structure as well as the roof isn't glued in place. So one can take the tank appart, place the water tank upside down above the superstructure and store the whole water tank in less space. I installed a threaded road on the layout base which holds the tank securely in place as it's close to the edge of the layout.








The next kit is the "Silverton"-style sand house. As usual on model train buildings, they are all a bit undersized, especially while they are made for "G-scale" but I use them for 1:20,3 scale which is approx. 10% larger. On the other hand, I don't have huge space, so the smaller structures turn out very well for me, especially as I build freelanced railroads at all. So there's no "real prototype" to compare with.
And I also choosed the plastic kits due to the outside use. The weather can be rough in Germany, so wooden structures wouldn't last as long as plastic.








Oh, I also forgot to mention, that I spend a dry-brush on most plastik parts to take away the plastik-shine and to make the structures look better. I also painted the single bricks in the bunker walls of the sand house.








I'm not happy yet with the original "sand" inlay. Maybe I'll replace it some day.








The Pola kit's are made from very strong parts. The walls of the houses are approx. 10mm thick and very sturdy. I glue them together with UHU plast glue. Actually, the kits includes 2-3 tubes of glue, but due to the age, they are not longer usable.








Here's the finished sand house placed beside the water tank at the south entrance to Ronja springs between the "yard" and the "station".








Now it's time to get the station building started as well. I'm proud to got all the "Silverton"-line kits from Pola, so this will become the main station at "Ronja Springs".








Cheers, Gerd


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Very nice! 

Looking forward on how your station turns out.


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

Nice work!


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## placitassteam (Jan 2, 2008)

Great looking structures. I think that the water tower and coaling tower that I have may be Pola, at least they look very similar construction. A friend gave them to me. I agree that they are a little undersize but I really don't care. I looking forward to your continued layout building.


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Hello again,
here's some progress on the station building for "Ronja Springs". The double slip windows are functional.








The side walls are made from a brown base, while the yellow parts are inlays. Doors and windows will open.








While gluing the front cabinet together, I put the roof on for a first overall dimension. What a huge building.








Gerd


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Good morning,
David, thanks for the hint. I prefere glue on the windows. One of them I already glued into place to keep the upper sashes up. I also fixed all doors with tape on the back side, as I don't "play" with the structures. In case of special photo-shootings, the tape can be removed very easy.
When I placed the station where it was original situated, the scene looked to crowded to me. Additional, a passenger train stopping at the depot will block the switch in front of the water tower and therefore the passing siding.
















I also found out, that the long single spur track was a bit boring for switching operation. So I ripped out the two inner tracks...








... and rearranged them. The depot of Ronja Springs is now located in the center of the passing siding. The shorter spur track to the right will lead to some industry.








To the right is a spur track with 2 spots as team track, one spot will be equipped with a freight platform.








Today I met LVLC Shay #5 at the depot. The Louise Valley Lumber Co. sawmill is located in Ronja Springs as well (at the far left end by the small rail yard, not physicaly shown by the layout (yet)).
Both railroads, the LVLC and D&S are using the same grade up to "Feddi Groove Jct", also known as Strawberry Hill, where the logging spure entres the Louise Valley to the logging camp.








Gerd


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## placitassteam (Jan 2, 2008)

That does look better.


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Thanks Winn,


Today I’ll show you the first stretch of track reaching from the raised station Ronja Springs to the upper meadow of our garden. The first grade has 3.5% and is 11 meters long. The line leads into the upper meadow and through an S-curve to the right of the garden. This is where the rails end at the moment. In future, the track will continue to “Feddyville” at the end of garden. In the curve where the track hits the meadow, the Louise Valley Lumber Co, logging division will divide from the main line.
The track sneaks along the fence and a concrete wall, rounding the playground. As on the station, I used wood for the benchwork.
















The curved segments are made from trapezium pieces, which were screwed together with 50% offset.
















The rails in the meadow are laid on concrete slaps used for lawn edges. The tracks them self are not fixed to them, but the clayey soil holds them in place very well. I also like the look of this “ballasted” tracks. Maybe I’ll use this technique for the whole layout since the light grey ballast won’t fit into my eye.
















Here’s a 4-car-train climbing uphill towards Feddyville.
*



*
Regards, Gerd


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Good morning,

since I’m still unsure about the final layout plan in the upper garden, I spend some more attention to Ronja Springs. At the right loading spur, I announced some industry. So let’s get started. Piko had a special offer for the furniture works “Franz Huber” (aka Mr. Mann’s Cannery).










Since the space allows only background relief building, the Piko kit is a perfect base for kit-bashing, while the building is build from modular pieces, which can be rearranged very easily.

Beside the kit, I ordered a bag of additional columns to attach the wall segments together. While the cream-uni-colored structure looked somewhat boring, I decided to paint all the embossed bricks.










It was quite some work, but turned out very nice. I also painted the corner and connecting columns.










The last photo shows a first test-fit. The whole structure will get a foundation to raise the door in the center to the level of the freight cars. This will become the loading door for boxcars.










Will be continued next week.
Bye, Gerd


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Let’s go to part two of the furniture works.
The two wall segments without windows got cut on the table saw to make the small side wall segments of the relief structure.








I rearranged the walls of the building from the original idea to a 2×4 pattern, which fits better into the space I have available. The first ideas came out to big in my opinion. I glued each floor level together and finally both wall segments together.








To enforce the whole structure, I added plastic channels and triangles on the inside.








Before I installed the windows and doors, I gave all bricks a wash of thinned brown paint to blend the bright cream bricks more into a brownish-yellow.








The blue windows got also repainted and with the roof in place, the main part is done.

















Still missing are the foundation and some details parts.
Cheers, Gerd


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## Jim Agnew (Jan 2, 2008)

Impressive work!


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Hello folks,

I had some trouble and issues with my original layout designs and after dozends of other ideas, I'm pretty sure that I now have the best trackplan for my personal garden railroad.

Once I got rid off all the stupid ideas I had as well as faulty compromisses, I ended with a pure and iconic logging railroad.

I'll start with some overviews. Unfortunally, the second one is 180° rotated.



















The lower station "Ronja Springs" got some small updates. The furniture works moved form the right to the left spur track and will provide 2 car spots to serve the factory with freight trains.
The sawmill area will stay at the far left end of the layout. There will come a relief structure for the sawmill as well.




























The "12"-scale dolls" are a good help to get a feeling for size and dimensions.

The upper garden got now totally redesgined. Going around the back of garden shed is not practical and there were some other ideas I had to put into the trash bin. the new design features a pure logging railroad paradise.
There'll be a small logging camp near the old log-loading spur. This section is seldom used for active logging, but to store supply cars of the logging railroad.
The mainline continues to a backwoods-siding. Light-Green indicates grades up to 2.5%, darg green 3.5% and red track will go up to 6-7%. Two more logging sides are connected via these steep grades.




























There are several ways how to operate this layout:


a) Pure Logging Operation
Log trains are handled in single and douple strings of log cars. A single string will contain 4 skeleton log cars (or 3 log cars when running with the Romanian CFF stuff). A train heading out of Ronja Springs may pull a double string up the 3.5% grade to the backwoods siding. Here the train is split and pushed in single strings to the loading sides. Once the loaded strings of cars are collected at the siding, a train with a double string (8 cars) will head down to the mill.
The logging camp and old log landing will be served from uphill-trains if necessary.


b) Freight Train Operation
Beside the log trains, I'll also run some Shay powered freight trains to serve Ronja Springs. These may run uphill as well to the backwoods station, which than might be used as stagging yard for the freight train operation. The log camp and spur might be used as industry spurs. Except for Ronja Springs, all other structures might be exchangeable for special purpose.


That's for now, more soon.

Gerd


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Oops.. I was a bit behind in following this topic I noticed! Station turned out very nice (and indeed is better in place now). Great kitbash of the factory and some well thought-through planning. Train is running uphill very nicely (no slipping wheels ;-) )
Like how you integrate the playground with the layout also, it makes it a family thing.


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Thanks Paulus,


here are some news from Ronja Springs. The factory building of Woods Furniture got the company name added to the roof as well as stone basement to raise the door up onto the floor height of flat and boxcars.

The letter and girders are cnc-milled from styrene and PVC. I used some PVC T-profile to support the letters.










Assembled on top of the roof.










Next I raised the while structure on top of a 2" basement. This will bring the door step on perfect height with flat cars or box cars. I got some PVC board with stone engravement which I ripped into stripes and glued them together to match the profile of the factory walls.










Finally the new base got glued to the walls as well. I might add some wash & weathering some day...










And here's the finished factory located at Ronja Springs.



















And while I had some stone-wall-strips left, I made a 1" height platform for the team track.












BTW, the above trackplan got discarded as well in the meantime...


Bye, Gerd


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## MJSavage (Dec 27, 2007)

That is looking good. I especially like Wood's Furniture and the raised sections too.


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Good morning,


take a coffee and relax ;-)









Cheers, Gerd


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## Chris Scott (Jan 2, 2008)

Really like your outdoor kitchen.


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## Mike Flea (Apr 8, 2014)

Very nice Gerd!


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Hello logging railroaders,

after my journey into the Colorado narrow gauge world during the last months, it’s time to return to my beloved logging railroads. The good weather outside motivated also to take the “Louise Valley Lumber Co.” out into the garden to do some operation.




























While I was shunting trains in Ronja Springs, I got the idea to switch the scenery. I moved the factory building to the left end, close to the future sawmill area, while the spur at the right was decorated as storage siding. In combination with the logging theme, I like this arrangement very much. I just have to find something between the water tank and the station building. Maybe a freight depot?



















The regular logging operation brought several train loads of logs from the upper end of the line down to the mill. I used the wye to shunt trains “in the woods”. I ran all my LVLC locos.



















At the end of the day, the model train also delivered the first ice-cream in 2019 to the customers ;-)










So the start is done into a new logging season!
Gerd


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## placitassteam (Jan 2, 2008)

I love your scenicing of the raised portion of your track.


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Hello,


I just enjoyed another log train run last weekend with my new LGB/Aster 3-truck shay








Gerd


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Good morning,

last year I did some experiments with cheap artificial grass carpets in Ronja Springs. I just have some of this green felt carpets and I cut some pieces to try them on the layout. 










Well, the look was not satisfying at all, but some more "green" on the layout would be very nice. A few weeks ago, I came across some higher value artificial grass stuff and gave it a second try. I ordered a small piece for testing and here's what it looks like after I re-done the area around the sand house and water tower.










The material has some advantages. First of all, it looks good and spends a lot of character to the raised portion of the layout. Second, it will keep dirt and gravel safe from being washed away by rain, while the base of the artificial grass allows water to drain from the base board.

Finally, I ordered more of the same material and spread it out all over Ronja Springs station. I guess I'll also use it on the long grade to the upper garden as well. Later I added a pile of old rails and some sticks. I also have material to make plants and bushes, but didn't find time yet, as the weather has arrived in April as well...










What do you think? More details and photos are shown on my blog at waldbahner.de 

Gerd


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## JEFF RUNGE (Jan 2, 2008)

That looks pretty good, got a link to the product?


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Jeff, I bought the grass on eBay (Germany) but it's described to be made by Condor Grass, the design is called "Havanna" and the grass is 35mm long.
I found the website of Condor Grass via Google but not the Havanna design. Anyhow, they have several nive looking designs. Gerd


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## Gerd (Jan 7, 2008)

Hi folks,

I like to share an update on my garden railroad construction. A lot has happend since the last update so here we go.

First of all, a survey team figured out, that there was a possibility to extend the dead-end trail track at the wye and to climb the following slope uphill.










For a long time, I thought this section would be to steep, but finally, I can take the hill with a maximum of 4%.

To make this section of the track some more interesting, I added some rocks from sandstones, forming a cut.










Inspired by this unexpected track extension, I just continued the track uphill to the edge of the new errected garden shed.










Beside the garden shed, I also made a raised gardening bed for vegetabels and a lower bed for tomatoes and zucchini. The lower section got some stone framing.










Latest idea was, to lead the track behind and around the garden shed to get the maximum length of track. But I soon realized, that it will become difficult to keep this section of track free from weeds. Additional, the narrow pathway will become less accessable, once there are rails on the ground as well. So the survey team is now out to find an alternative route for further track expansion.

Beside the railroad construction, I did some common logging operation, mostly with my 3-truck Shays. Since I finished some more log cars (total of 12 by now), I was able to run two separate trains.



















Gerd


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