Track laying problems....

[ikcdab]

So after waiting many years for the right time, its now here and I have started the garden railway.
The railway will run down the side of the garden and wil be about 2' off the ground behind a very handy wooden wall that already exists.
I have dug out about 4 inches deep behind the wooden edging and barrowed in about 4 tons of scalpings to form the track bed. So far, so good, see photo.

This gives a general view looking down the garden.
Next step, I bought bags of 3mm to dust chipping from the local quarry - £1.50 per bag, good value.
Using PECO SM32 track, i first laid a layer of the the chipping, then put the track onto it and ballasted around.
This didn't work at all well - there just isnt enough 'meat' in the peco sleepers for the ballast to grip and not enough weigh in the track to hold it down - and the hollow sleepers meant that 'packing' was impossible.
so my experimental lengths were ripped up. Next attempt was to lay two longtudinal wooden strips, approx 15mm square onto the ballast and then nail the track to this. Worked much better - the ballast was very firm and there was plenty of meat to be gripped, so the track was not moving around.
All was OK until yesterday - torrential rain all afternoon and this morning al ballast washed away! No idea where it went, but i was left with the wooden strips and track marooned on a thin layer of the fine chipping.
so what next?
I am thinking that I need to mix some cement in with the ballast to make it set. Also, maybe set some pegs in the trackbed about 6 inches apart and then lay a cement/chipping mix about an inch deep to the top of the pegs. then nail the track to the pegs and finally lay more ballast.
Any ideas/thoughts?

[Dr. Bond of the DVLR]

A rowlands mix (a mix of cement/sand/soil/stones all dry) wouldn't get washed away but would look very different to your loose ballast. I prefer the bricks or thermalite block method where by a track bed is laid as a long snaking "wall" to which the track is screwed. Ballast is then added cosmetically onto the top. The peg/cement option sounds like it might work well untill the pegs rot away - you also may have problems with not having any sleepers coinsiding with the pegs. The beauty of using rawl plugs is you can put them where they are most useful. There are also arguments for and against putting the screws in the middle or at the edges of the sleepers.

[Soar Valley Light]

Let me start off by saying I'm no garden railway construction expert, I haven't reached the construction stage yet. However, I do know a thing or two about construction in general and railway lines in particular - still not an expert mind you!

Zach has hit the nail on the head (sorry, no pun intended) about the finite life of timber, however, if you use good quality materials and plenty of preservative the rate of deterioration should be very slow. It's not easy to get hold of proper good old fashioned cacrinagenic creosote these days but the stuff you can get, mixed about 2 to 1 with old engine oil, deters a lot of wood eating beasties (but does nothing good at all for your plants!) I think if you used your longitudinal 15mm timbers fixed to the pegs, all made from hardwood or good quality and well creosoted softwood, with the track fixed to the 'way beams', it ought to provide a firm road.

The rowlands mix sounds to me like something people use to recreate weed strewn and overgrown track. By the sounds of your efforts you are looking for a tidier and better maintained appearance. Most railways of any gauge were originally constructed of reasonable quality materials and to a reasonable standard. On almost all lines track would have been properly surveyed, designed and set out on the ground. Uneven and poorly aligned track dramatically increases wear and damage to both rolling stock and track alike so it would be in the interest of the owning company to keep things to as good a standard as possible. When I reach the stage I intend to have reasonably cleanly ballasted track to the best lines and levels I can achieve.

Using the 'peg and way beam' method will need the track to be ballasted around and from what I've read this is very prone to washing out in wet conditions. In 12" to the foot scale it is necessary to allow ballast to consolidate before line speed is permitted. This is why lines often opened to freight traffic before passengers after construction and why a TSR was imposed after relaying operations. It's also why Dynamic Track Stabilisers were invented, to vibrate the ballast into a consolidated state after relaying, effectively producing the effects of many, many trains passing over the track in just minutes. This may be the answer in your situation, to carefully but firmly tamp the ballast down around the track. like the real thing it will always need topping up though. I've heard of many people using glue to hold the ballast round the track but I've also heard that PVA glue can dry a very unrealistic white colour!

I'm not sure I've given any earth shatteringly good advice here but I hope I might have at least introduced some discussion points! Incidentally, we have the "hollow sleeper" problem with the real thing too, steel sleepers are hollow and nigh on impossible to pack with anything other than a tamper/liner machine!

Andrew

[paullad1984]

http://www.interlink.co.uk/www.gardenra ... llast.html
Have a look at this sytem, looks interesting!

[pauly]

I loose laid some peco 32mm track by mixing cement dust into the ballest mix, laying it in and giving it a spray of water to set it off.
Hardened just fine and has survived.
I use the same process for my 45mm LGB tracked line

[bazzer42]

I have used the good old fashioned breeze block. End to end on a raised wall but at ground level I have spaced them out and infilled around them. It was time consuming but has paid dividends. The only track trouble I get is poor running points, usually caused by odd bits of ballast or back to backs on wheels. I also occasionally need to relay a point if ballast gets under sleepers. All track is fixed with security screws from screwfix/toolstation to help deter from theft.

[ikcdab]

thank you for all the replies. For now I am going to try setting legs at around 8" intervals about an inch or so proud of the base layer and levelled in. Then will mix some cement with the 3mm/dust chipping and put a layer of this in to the top of the pegs. One this has gone off I should be able to fix the track to the pegs and then ballast with the 3mm chipping mixed with cement but with the dust washed out.
Will try over the next few days and report back!