Now with cataracts done and some new, very clear vision, I can now see a computer screen, so on with the railway build.
My railway is not so much a garden railway but a more a model railway in the garden. As much as I like the ground level lines, for me that was not going to work, for a start, my garden is very flat. My line has a focus on operation rather than just running round and round. I have visited a number of garden railways and did not the like the down on your hands and knees to couple and uncouple etc. Plus with advancing years, I needed to future proof the line for comfortable operation.
Track level is 29–34 inches above ground, depending on where you are along the line. The line is supported by metal in one way or another, I did not want to use timber. It was also helped by the fact I got a lot of metal for little or no money, always a great help.
Stage 1 was mainly supported by old greenhouse staging, donated from my Dad's old greenhouses. To support this, one side of legs sits on block paving, the other side sits on cast concrete bases.
Here is a cast block and shuttering for the next block.
A few days later there appeared some more cast blocks and the start of the greenhouse staging being put in place.
Then later, then rest of the staging. A lot of this I was making up as I went along!
I ran out of staging before getting to the tip of the triangle, fortunately there are some concrete posts leftover from the netting frame that used to be there, so I welded up some steel angle support brackets which are then bolted to the posts. You will see I am not the greatest welder but it does for this project. The very tip is supported by a piece of Dexion screwed to the gate post.
This then enabled me to bolt on some front and back Dexion angle which will support the upturned roofing sheet. The upturned roofing sheet forms the main railway support structure, giving a flat, rigid and light surface support.
The roofing sheet was cut with a metal cutting disk in an angle grinder, this job is best done when the neighbours have gone out!
The staging has various tops and slightly different leg heights, so the legs were all cut to the same height rather than use different size packing pieces. The tops will give extra support to the roofing sheets.
This shows how the track will be laid and how it helps align up track of different construction. I have a mix of hand built wooden sleeper track, Peco and Tenmille plastic sleeper track, I bought batches of track when they came up for sale at the right price over many years, hence the variety, yes it would be nice to have all of one type but it is just how it happened. As you will see in this picture, with the roofing sheet used upside down it gives large flat areas to support the track and small drainage gulleys to take away the rain water.
When covered with loose ballast it becomes harder to tell the various types of track apart. Keeping the ballast loose makes it easier to make changes to track layout if required at a later date. Although this method changed later in the build as things evolved.
Here, most of the roofing sheet has been cut and placed in position. The foreground bit is just under 18 inches wide with another 6 foot behind the camera, while at the far end it goes out to just under 3.5 feet wide, the tree is about 40 feet away from this point.
This is the far end where the line turns through 90 degrees to go along the fence for about 18 feet past the greenhouse then will do a 90 degree left past the end of the greenhouse and work it ways up the garden. Luckily, here there were more redundant concrete posts to which I bolted brackets made from Dexion. The curved pieces of ply are templates of 5 foot radius so I can check out alignments as the line progresses. It is here I may have to build a large curved point, this is where the main line divides before approaching the goods yard and station.
I was surprised to get to do the greenhouse section because I had run out of Dexion. My supply was the old layout supports of a large loft layout I built with my Dad over 40 years ago, which Dad kept in his shed when the layout was broken up. Some other bits were given to me by my friend Ken, who had some spare. So I went onto Ebay to get some more, only to be shocked at the prices for this stuff now
While on Facebook I had a look on the Market Place section and searched Dexion, up came a secondhand job lot of 275 feet for £25, only problem it was over 80 miles away, luckily Ken was going to be within 15 miles from the location while on a business trip, so he was able to collect it in his truck. When he came back I was pleasantly surprised that not only was it the Dexion angle, there were over 50 of the 90 degree corner plates and 20 of the feet along with a large bucket of the correct size nuts and bolts.
This is the angle that I bought, the longest lengths are 10 feet.
Martin
