Garden Railway Forum

Hello from Texas.

I put a little blurb in the Intro section. I'm on what feels like the slow grind to renovating a recently purchased house. And with that I will finally start a garden railway. After some study, I've chosen 16mm SM32 narrow gauge live steam, as what I want to pursue. I've ordered a Bundaberg from Roundhouse to launch the hobby.

To start with, I will have about 90' of fence line at the edge of the yard to run along (south side). The yard is reasonably flat, but the fence gently slopes up until near the back of the yard there is a large retaining wall along the east of the property. I was planning on importing some flat chunks of limestone to form a wavy planter bed along the fence. Then turn out the limestone to create planters in front of the retaining wall at the grassy part of the yard. (further to the north along the retaining wall is a pool). At the west side, part of the fence length goes beyond the back face of the house, giving me about a 24' deep niche for another planter and a station location where the line will generally originate from.

Phase I is fairly simple. From the west niche station, the line can be made to follow and meander along the fence planter bed and turn out to an reasonable loop at the east raised planter in front of the retaining wall...

Here are the beginner layout planning questions, that I'm going to ask, even though y'all have answered them before, but I didn't like all the answers:

1. I can keep phase I, the main line, generally nice and flat. But, I can only take up so much of the back of the yard with the raised planter beds, for all of the considerations you might imagine. This means my "nice loop" will have 36"+/- radii. But, if 36" is acceptable, I can get 36" at the west niche area also to create a complete loop. 36" also means there is potential for other phases. It is really hard to tell from the videos, because I don't have a good feel for the scale yet, how tight I'm seeing some people successfully steam. If 36" is really just asking for too much long term pain, I could work things to 48", but it will limit or eliminate other phases. At the west niche station, the phase I loop is more about function for a continuous circuit, so I'm not at all worried about aesthetics there. At the east, 36" curves could be broken up, and potentially look a little more reasonable overall. A 48" curve would mostly be a circle, or tear drop. Finally, I was intending on buying Cliff Barker widened gauge for the sweeping curve areas. What can I get away with?

2. In planning the west niche area, I need to consider the possibilities for phase II and III. What I would really like, is a Darjeeling style looping grade drop as a possibility, and then head east along the edge of the fence planter, slowly climbing until rejoining the main line for Phase II. Phase III would be an edge of planter perimeter slope around the west niche station, that would spiral down, cut under a bridge and head north along the house face at a lower level for a branch line.
The Phase III branch could probably have about 38' of descending length, which at 2% would give just over 9" track to track clearance for a bridge. The Phase II Darjeeling loop, I might be able to squeeze 22' of length. For a very thin ceiling tunnel, if the track to track was 7 3/4", it would be a 3% grade. But, the climb headed east along the fence could have easily 50', which would be 1.25%. If I compromise Phase I being flat, I could reduce that percent farther.
Despite numerous conversations I've seen on live steam and grades, I don't feel like I have solid information yet. I've seen any number of videos of live steam running down to an end loop that changes grade and crosses back over the line, but I don't know if that is down only, or what the long climb grade is. In discussions there are plenty of people that want dead level. Then there are those who say, "I have 3.5% in some areas" but don't clarify if that is for live steam, or you find out later in the discussion that is for a 3' section of track. The answer is a big deal to the design of the whole west end, and the risks I take. There is no sense in planning the Phase III spur, if the engine can never steam back up with a couple of carriages or half a dozen or more sugar cane cars in tow. Of course one of the answers is to build the west end on posts, reworking and testing configurations. But, some of you have already tested these things. So, what am I seeing in the videos? What are the grades for these cross-overs that others are successfully using? I saw the one recent post where the gentleman talked himself out of bridging over, (horrible with names, sorry), but it looked like that was in part for the overall layout idea as much as anything. What say yea? Tell me one more time.

Much thanks in advance. I'll be eager to check back, but I'm also really busy with the renovations this week.

Jasper_7

Hi Jasper and welcome. Sounds like an ambitious plan which will keep you busy for quite a while once you are able to start.
Any chance of a sketch ( free hand would be fine) to show exactly what you are talking about? I must admit to my aging brain getting scrambled trying to take in your various options!

Hello Jasper.

As I haven't yet any experience of building in the garden I can't offer any advice. However I agree with Philip that some plans/sketches would be helpful.

When I eventually build my railway it will be as flat as possible, although it wil be much smaller than yours and my garden does have a gentle slope so I'll be interested to see what advice is offered.

Good luck with the project.

Ian

Download Anyrail (free for up to 50 pieces of track) to show your plan:

www.anyrail.com

Hello Jeff,
Good to see you have given some serious thought to what you want to achieve. A sketch would certainly be helpful, but as a starting observation, I think 36" may be a little too tight; it will certainly limit the stock you can run successfully. My line has 38 inch curves from necessity, but if possible I would increase the radius to allow larger locomotives and rolling stock to use the line (mainly when friends come to run on the line, as my stock is short wheelbase to suit my line).
Good luck with the house and the garden!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w73lczoyjnqy ... _F4za?dl=0

Eh... at the moment it is easier to make pdfs. Hopefully, the link works, if not cut and paste and it should work.

There should be three sheets.

Version 1 is what I first envisioned standing in the yard. The proposed landscaping gives me a variety of garden, raised up some to then also provide a platform for a train line. But, it leaves me with a central grassy area for the younger nieces and nephews to play, a path to get the mower in, and has the right view lines from the porch and house. The southwest corner (lower right), will potentially be a shady spot to play with the trains at a portion of the garden more dedicated to them.
The light blue line is potentially the sugar cane spur line, not necessarily intended for passenger service.

Version 9 and 11 are attempts to work to less grades, add more interest with the levels, consider more views. A growing concern is that the double line along the fence will crowd the garden too much, and I'll be fighting with the plantings all the time. There is definitely an appeal to visually seeing a single narrow gauge line meandering along.

Another aspect to the planning is phasing and extensions. Most of the v1 main line would be level and done at once with less track. Depending upon the plantings, maybe sidings get added, maybe one day a grass level spur gets added. The other versions require more track installation, probably all at the beginning.

Anyway, someone let me know that you can download the pdfs successfully. I'll be working on house renovation stuff through the weekend and catch up with y'all next week.

Jeff
aka Jasper 7
aka Jeff

Well Jeff, that is certainly a very ambitious layout indeed and I love it. All three sheets show me what a brilliant line it will be, I personally can’t see any problems with the raise and fall of your line, but has you have the two semi circle curves at the bottom of your plan, the 36” radius look like you could go to 48” but that would be very tight in area. Could you not do as you have done at the top of your plan and add a straight in both curves, that would leave you with less chance of derailment’s.

On my line Fairy Wood Light Railway, I haven’t any full radius at all, and some big locos have gone round it, an RH Alco 2.6.2 went round no problem. You can see my line with it’s up and down completed and my Grandson driving my RH Billy, showing the raise and fall, ok it’s not pulling anything, but I have had 3 coaches on and it pulled them great.

The idea of putting your line on post’s is a good one, as you then can lift or drop your line to suit.
Only with a little bit of trial and error will you be able to be happy with your line….if we ever are..

There are far more experienced members on here that can and will advise you more, but the main thing for me is, enjoy your line and have fun…….

V09 and V11 look ok to me. Not quite so convinced by the other plan which looks to me to have much tighter curves.

I'm no expert on live steam, but my understanding is that tight curves and gradients make for very challenging driving conditions. However, the long runs in between the ends should give you some very satisfying steaming.

Rik

Hi Jasper, welcome aboard. I have to agree with Rik that 1 looks very busy. I think you will find with a garden railway less is more. I have sidings dotted all over my simple loop and never use them. It was just my initial hunch that they would be handy. I would love the meandering look but gardens over here are a lot smaller so I've had to settle for something simple.

The mantra here is pictures and lots of them!

Enjoy the construction - the best bit!

V09 works best for me, but it's your railway.
I think you'll be able to get something down and running, sooner with 09. It will also give you the chance to learn on the job before getting into complicated stuff. All the planning and drawing in the world won't stop you having "if only I'd thought of...." ideas as you go along!

I have a Roundhouse locomotive. Their website does helpfully state what radius each loco will go round. In my case 30 inches. However as state above there is also stock to consider. Long vehicles will have overhang and possibly if propelling, buffer/ coupling issues. Also unless you undertake some form of gauge widening you may encounter drag.

As space will be limited on my eventual railway 36 inches will probably be my maximum. I am building mainly 4 wheeled stock with short wheelbases for home use. Bogie stock and long vehicles will be acquired to run on other larger railways as a guest.

If you don't plan on running long trains or trains with long wheelbases, then 36 might be satisfactory.

Ian

Having built several garden lines, starting with LGB and electric power at first, then moving into live steam with a Frank S and a Roundhouse Bertie(but have owned several other engines), go for the largest radius curves you can(you will thank yourself later for this) and keep the line as flat as possible. Makes running live steam much more enjoyable. Up and down grades make RC control almost requirement unless you like chasing a burning hot engine on the downgrade and having to throttle up to get up the grade or around the tight curves. I run on 45mm gauge as its much easier to find second hand in the USA over 32mm gauge Peco or similar track. Even my LGB/Aster Frank S, which was designed to cope with LGB's very tight R1 track, is much happier on R2 or larger. But that being said, my little line is R1 but raised in a large planters box I built that is attached to our deck. I also kept the track nearly dead level and I am able to run manual controled four coupled and short wheel base 6 coupled engines with short trains. Good luck on your new house and forth coming railway! Mike the Aspie

Ok gentlemen, I'm going to take everyone's advice, more or less.

(see version 12 in the dropbox if you like) I'm going to start the real planning for a phase I derived from version 11, where I will have as broad of loops as just about possible at each end, and keep the track dead level. Over the summer I will lay out the garden in that part of the yard. I may lay some or all of the track for phase I on temporary post and board, just depending upon the schedule, and in-fill the garden. In the mean time, the new fence is starting to go in today, and there will be lots of work to do to get the sprinkler main and valves in the back in prep for the whole garden. I've got to do some curb appeal work, and painting, and many other things in the weeks to come.

Making sure we're moved in, functioning well, and the kids have fun this summer in the pool will be a priority. Only a couple of years left before they get booted out the door.

So, I'm sure I'll come back to the help section for a number of things. And once it gets started, I suppose I am to start a post in Railways and Layouts?
If I get really ambitious, I may figure out how to post to Youtube.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm confident this will be a good plan to start with.

Jeff

Hope things go well for you Jeff and the kids have a great summer. More importantly you get to do what you want to do and run a little line on a board or something.

We hope to see the start of your line at some point soon, so send in loads of photo’s and loading onto Youtube is fairly easy when you have done it once. Just goto the little upload box and take it from there.

There is an “How To Load Videos” thread that tom_tom_go has posted to help.