Lots of questions (Peco SM32, live steam, Anyrail etc.)

[The Denying Dutchman]

Where to start! Probably a question most garden railway newbies ask themselves. Fortunately I like to do my homework so I won't bother you with that question. Unfortunately for every answer a new question seems to arise so I give up and ask.

I've read about slopes, minimum radius, tracks, plants, buildings, you name it. Slope is easy: 0%. Plants are a bit harder, I prefer them dead (If only the Chinese could make lifelike, durable, plastic outdoor plants. ) and scenery like building etc. aren't of any concern yet.

So I'm going to flood you with questions about tracks. But, before that I'm going to explain the situation with pictures. Not that pictures are necessary, but it has been proven that pictures make an otherwise boring topic a bit less boring.

Copyright by Google maps, but since it's my garden: to hell with their copyright!

A not very accurately drawn "situation" in my garden. (The garden is 6,5 meters wide and a whole lot of meters long.) I'm planning to use the flower bed. I can extend it to about 10 meters long towards the back of the garden and make it about 2 meters wide without having to cut a whole lot of tiles. (the tiles are laid in a pattern)

I'm planning to make a track with a curve radius of 85cm, (about 2ft 9,5 inch) in theory that should be wide enough, but is it? I'm only going to run narrow gauge live steam locos and I rather not encounter a situation in which a new bought loco or carriage won't run on my track! (This was the first question.)

Second question: I took a 85cm radius because in Anyrail that's exactly 3 pieces of Peco flexi tracks which is very convenient. How accurately is Anyrail? I of course don't want to figure out the hard way that the track I had envisioned and drawn in Anyrail is totally different in the real world.

Third question: Is it even possible to lay a track with a radius of 85cm on a space about 2 meters wide? How much space is recommended between the centerline of the track and obstacles? It would be a shame if a new bought loco, wider than my Mamod, would run into the fence etc.

At the moment the reserved space is a bit of a mess, I tried to make a panorama photo, but that didn't work out quite well so two pictures.


Left. The first row of tiles are easily removed, which makes my space about 2 meters wide.

Right. (The other meters not shown in the picture are paved so of no concern.)

On the left is a small waterfall hidden. It's going to stay, but I'm planning to extend it with a canal to a small harbour with a pump circulating the water. This has two benefits: I can have a tunnel and bridges without raising the track. And, I'm Dutch, the Dutch like messing around with water. Give a Dutchman a plastic bucket and shovel at the beach and instead of building a sand castle he's going to build a dyke to hold back the sea!
On the right is my christmas tree, that one has to stay. On the far right all is quite dead already. My wifes dog loves to dig and roll in the dirt. Not too convenient for a garden railway, but to keep neighbours cats out I'll probably install a few high voltage wires around the railway anyway, so that solves two problems.

That brings me to the fourth question: Points! A railway needs points, but since I'm going to run live steam locos shunting isn't something I'll be doing. Maybe in a far future when I can control my loco(s) without having to run after them, but definitely not at this moment. I tried to find some live steam narrow gauge layouts, but most garden railwayers seem to only take pictures of parts of the track which is understandable, it looks nicer than an "aerial photo" showing the whole track, but it definitely doesn't help getting an idea how others (who also are limited in the width) designed their live steam narrow gauge railway.

And that brings me to the fifth question: designing a railway. I'm planning to dig in cemented bricks and bolt the track to the bricks with a mixture of cement and small stones as railway bed. In other words: if the track lays in place it stays in place, which makes it hard to alter the railway afterwards. Peco flexi rails seems not to be very flexible when you want to alter your railway so adding points afterwards is going to be a pain in the ***, but buying all track at once will be a very costly afair. I'm unfortunately not in the position to spend hundreds of pounds at once. So how do you guys (and girls) handle this problem?

I guess these are enough questions for one topic.

[tom_tom_go]

Hi Paul,

Have a read about my railway (first attempt) in my signature which should give you some helpful info for building in a small space.

Cheers,

Tom

[laalratty]

If you can push the radius out to 38 inches (a bit over 0.9m) and using Peco sm32 track then you can use the new radius 2 curves. This would make building the curve much easier, my line used to have a 3 foot (around 0.9m) radius curve and had many problems caused by trying to persuade Peco flexi track to bend to and stay at that radius (admittedly using a rail bender would help somewhat)

[The Denying Dutchman]

A 38 inch radius won't fit. The diameter of such a curve is 2 meters wide so the sleepers will touch the fence. I have no clue what the minimum needed space between sleeper and fence is (or between tracks), but I assume that it has to be about an inch or two at least.

A rail bender is something I can make myself, so I don't worry about bending the tracks too much.

[LnBmad]

Hi Paul,

Toms railway is well worth looking at. You could also look at mine (barley pit line, http://gardenrails.myfreeforum.org/about7200.html ).

I would leave a minimum of 4" to the centre of your rail from the edge of your fence. 2'6" radius curves are very tight so anything bigger than a 2-6-2 is going to struggle (2-6-2 may struggle aswell depending on length between axels) but your mamod and other small ng locos will cope fine (same radius as mamod track). I am able to run my lynton and Barnstaple bogie carriages (565mm length) around 2'6"r using couplings on a swing arm. If your wanting to add turnouts at a later date then I would simply screw the rail down for he time being until your happy with the end result.

Hope this helps

[LnBmad]

Oh and flexi track can be bent to 2'6" but camber may occur and you need to make all sleepers seperated

[IrishPeter]

Gradients are OK, just don't over do it.  Our garden has a pronounced slope, so I have to tolerate a couple of short 3% or 4% burst, and which I wish I could have kept it to 1.5%.  However I would have had to dynamite rock to achieve that.  OK, that's a slight xaggeration, but the domestic authority (aka SWMBO) made it clear that using Paddy's Motorbike on the rocks was definitely verboden! As it is I just have to be careful which locos I buy so that my trains get up and down hills intact.

With roughly 2m to play with I would suggest that if you can ease the radius a little it will make life significantly easier for you, and for any small 0-6-0 (C) locomotives that may visit.  I generally regard 760mm as the tightest one should go in SM32, and that pretty much limits you to 0-4-0 (B) types.  The manufacturers will give you minimums of 760mm for generic three axle locomotives and 610mm for generic two-axle types, but that is on good track, and mine has a few irregularities cause by being ground level and floated on ballast not nailed to timber or screwed to concrete blocks!  

I tend to settle the alignment of my railway by using a vehicle I refer to as "the street sweeper."  At a scale 13m long and 2.5m wide it has the biggest 'throw' of any of my vehicles going around curves.  I leave a 100mm between the outer rail and any obstacle on the outside of a bend.  I still remember the repair work needed after the end platform contacted a too close rock at the scale equivelent of 40km/h!

Cheers
Peter in AZ

[Gremlin]

I have a tight 2'6" at one end, had to to get it in the space and was surprised at what will go round that. A Lady Anne is fine along with my Accucraft Lyn 2-4-2. All the 0-4-0's are very happy with it.

Sure we'd all love those nice big sweeping curves but you have to work with the space you have. Just use a rail bender like I did and even the pieces bent to 2'6" just sit in place but I'm not sure it would be as good just held down by screws. That would be quite a lot of tension.

Points can easily be added by cutting the rail at a later date and dropping in the space, I had to do that. If that's a plan then probably best not to concrete the track down, or a pretty weak mix will chip out.

Are you going to clear the borders or leave some things in place and work the track in to fit?

[AFGadd]

Like Gremlin, I've had little choice but to use 2'6" curves in my balloon loops. However I've used the Peco set 2'6" curves together with the Peco set 38" curves leading into the 2'6". Seems to work OK, not used the line much yet.

I bulked at using the flexi track on any of the above curves so ALL my track is laid onto my trackbed (bricks) and then ballasted. The ballast was then glued into place with PVA.

Trying to add a Facebook image (while camping in a field near Bude...)

[The Denying Dutchman]

Thanks all for the input!

 I generally regard 760mm as the tightest one should go in SM32, and that pretty much limits you to 0-4-0 (B) types.  The manufacturers will give you minimums of 760mm for generic three axle locomotives and 610mm for generic two-axle types, but that is on good track, and mine has a few irregularities cause by being ground level and floated on ballast not nailed to timber or screwed to concrete blocks!

Ok, so my planned radius of 850mm together with the a minimum center distance of about 4 inch as suggested by LnBmad will fit in a space of 2 meters wide and gives me the ability to run 0-6-0s. Good enough for me!

Just use a rail bender like I did and even the pieces bent to 2'6" just sit in place but I'm not sure it would be as good just held down by screws. That would be quite a lot of tension.

So, bolting down flexi rails can cause problems?

Are you going to clear the borders or leave some things in place and work the track in to fit?

The waterfall thingy will stay where it is, but altered. A tiny tree will stay and of course the Christmas tree. All else can and must disappear, a former neighbour never did much to his garden and left Japanese knotweed grow wildly, it didn't take long before it reached our garden. You can't kill the darn plant, trust me I tried everything and it grows like mad. (It's for that reason illegal to import in the UK for example.) So I have to make sure to put sturdy underlayment under the cemented bricks which means that I have to dig a lot leaving not much of the "native wildlife".

[jay1976]

where would you get a track bender for sm32 rail? or do you fabricate something...never had to bend flexitrack before with a track bender (I had 00 before and you can bend it with you hands easy) the flexi I got i planned to use for straights with slight bends in which i have found bend ok for me and was also using setrack for both my loops..

I also have no permanant railway in the garden as we are only living here until november then we move into a more permant house(hopefully with a big garden but even a small garden will be ok for a small layout)

[The Denying Dutchman]

I guess you have to make the track bender yourself. Quite odd that Peco doesn't sell benders for their track, maybe they don't want us to make curves with it and buy the more expensive curved tracks instead.

[Gremlin]

I just think that flexi track held that tight with screws isn't as good as bent rail that is happy to stay put. The unbent rail always wants to be straight and fighting to do so.
If you can't get a bender I would advise using a set of curves and use flexi for the more gentle ones.
There is something called a Blizzy bender, quite expensive for what it is, you might be able to rent one from one of the bigger retailers?

I made my own from an old drill vice, happy to lend by posting would be a killer.



all this track is flexi that's been through the above device. Although screwed down it will quite happily sit there and hold its shape.

[The Denying Dutchman]

Shipping a machine vice would be more expensive than buying a used one and I have a lathe/milling combi so making one entirely from scratch would be a possibility also.

How do you set the bender so that you get the desired radius? I know it can be calculated, but my math is a bit rusty.  :oops:

[tom_tom_go]

I have the Blizzy Bender (making your own is the first option) and yes it is expensive, however, after all the money you have spent on trains and track why settle for poor running?

I managed to bend track with it down to 3ft easily. If you use the AnyRail software to make templates 1:1 scale you can fit track to suit.

[LnBmad]

I use a fleshy rail bender.... I strip the rails from the sleepers and bend to shape by hand before re threading the sleepers back on.

Easiest way to check you have clearance is to lay your track onto the centre of 6"wide planks/ blocks and then put the next rail on a separate plank/ block

[jay1976]

I made my own from an old drill vice, happy to lend by posting would be a killer.

I got a old one of them was going to car boot,I got some smaller bits of flexi track I bought and think I will give it a go on the small bits with a diy track bender,the small bits were going to be used on sidings which were going to have a few bends in them.

[Gremlin]

[quote=

How do you set the bender so that you get the desired radius? I know it can be calculated, but my math is a bit rusty.  :oops:[/quote]

Nothing that complicated, I just did it by eye, try and see technique

[The Denying Dutchman]

How do you set the bender so that you get the desired radius? I know it can be calculated, but my math is a bit rusty.  :oops:

Nothing that complicated, I just did it by eye, try and see technique

That does make sense. When using Anyrail 1:1 templates as suggested by Tom-tom it's just a matter of bending until it matches the template.

[IrishPeter]

For a template for bending plain track I tend to make chalk lines of the desrired radius on the concrete driveway using a piece of classroom chalk and a length of fishing line or string (nothing too stretchy) using a peg at the side of the drive as a fulcrum. I then bend the rail to match the line, It works OK, and is the low tech solution - my first method of dealing with any roblem!

Cheers,
Peter in AZ