Garden Railway Forum

maxi-model:115495 wrote:From a purely mercenary angle  - Buy a good established and accepted make of second hand plastic sleepered track, whatever gauge. If the hobby does not workout for you, and you haven't chopped it up into little itty bitty pieces and bent it out of shape, then you will be able to sell it for pretty well as much as you bought it (less cost of sale). Make it yourself and you might just make back the second hand cost of the rail. Your wood and labour go for nought.

You haven't mentioned what method of power - track, battery, live steam ? Max.

Being a mercenary Scotsman I like the thought of getting my money back! However I don't foresee moving house in the next few years and even if we do I can always start again so I'm not that bothered.

And I've decided on battery power to start with.

stoker:115496 wrote:Although 12'' to the foot railways are often built using wooden sleepers,these are laid on a properly prepared and drained base.

Building a garden railway in the same way: wooden sleepered track fixed to 12mm square battens fixed to a concrete trackbase, the whole ballasted with your choice of stone chips, works well for longer than setting the same track directly on concrete. The base, if it's not well drained, will cause wooden sleepers to rot faster than you can say "Thomas the Tank Engine"!

Also this guy;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Penrhyn-Quarr ... Swm8VUvVtL[/quote]
Cliff Barker track is something of a Rolls Royce system and seems to be very good quality.
His website is worth a look.
http://www.cliffbarker.talktalk.net/
I would be surprised if someone who is struggling with the cost of Peco SM32 would go for this though.

Andy,

I'm not 'struggling with the cost' as you so impolitely put it, but am looking for value for money. The initial outlay cost is substantial when buying RTR track, so not being made of money (sorry about that) I am looking for a way to save money, enjoy the building and enter another facet of the railway modelling hobby.

Incidentally Cliif Barker's system is very reasonably priced and would appear to be a far better product and lower priced than the peco setrack.

One assumes that Andy is taking Rolls Royce as an indicator of quality as apposed to taste....

'new money buy Rollers,old money buy Daimler'.....

Cliff does appear to sell track and pointwork as kits,and as my time,and I assume the OP's,is free,the resulting cash saving can be shown to our SWMBO(or in my case 'er indoors) as being frugal with our pensions whilst being;

'Out there tidying up that wilderness and making me a garden'!

flying scotsman:115465 wrote:Peter, I understand what your saying but the budget just doesnt stretch to approximatley ten quid a meter. So home made is the way it has to be.

I didn't mean to seem impolite.
I don't know whether to apologise for trying to help.

As I've said earlier, can I wish you good luck with whatever methods you choose to use?

stoker:115496 wrote:Regarding track, Peco does look very expensive in our sizes, but LGB looks 'toylike'....until I studied several threads within the forum where the huge depth of LGB track has been concealed with plenty of ballast,is this the way to go?

LGB code 332 and some hand made wood sleeper points and Xing laid on floating track bed. Just spiked every 36" or so.



If using wood sleeper try to make sure the track bed is in full sun, avoid shaded ares of garden. Annual "basting" with "Cuprinol" or similar recommended for wooden stuff. Or just keep it indoors



45 mm ?....Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I never really notice the "toy like" element". Especially after 12 years of "weathering". Code 332 stuff is very robust unlike.......

Modelling W&L @16 mm .......45 mm gauge is near as. OK, old one to pitch but....

Yes, that is 2 ft gauge (32 mm on bright new 45 mm) L&B in picture. Max.

maxi-model:115522 wrote:Annual "basting" with "Cuprinol" or similar recommended for wooden stuff. Or just keep it indoors

If you can get Genuine Creosote to treat your wooden sleepers, your railway will even SMELL right!

You can get real creosote if you know where to look, avoid the modern creocoat as it is terrible

try these chaps, but remember you have to be a professional to use it.....

http://www.creosotesales.co.uk/

I love the stuff, it smells beautiful and works like a dream.