Peaslake & Grayswood Light Railway Construction Diary

A place for the discussion of garden railways and any garden style/scale portable and/or indoor layouts
steamyjim
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Post by steamyjim » Sat May 17, 2008 11:02 pm

Sounds good MTA!!!!

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Post by ACLR » Sat May 17, 2008 11:03 pm

found this manufacturer on the web that does dual gauge rail :D
http://www.svrronline.com/TrackandRail.html

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Post by MTA » Thu May 22, 2008 9:50 am

The railway construction begins

When the track arrives :lol: I have just asked for a quote for a box of track and a pack of joiners from PPS with a few to surveying the line and getting the first bit of track down. I am just about to redraw the plans as it is now going to be a double track main line with the track being in two different gauges.
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Post by bungle80a » Thu May 22, 2008 10:20 pm

Sounds like a good plan! I shall be following this thread withj interest for ideas whilst continuing on the construction of the Fairfield Railway. Nice to see that my work on the FR has had an influence. Although currently, i'm not sure if we are now going for 2 different gauges or a double 45mm. Got to push my boss in the direction of having 32mm as I have nothing regaugable to 45mm at the moment!

On a side note, have you decided which part of your railway to lay first?
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Post by MTA » Fri May 23, 2008 6:44 pm

bungle80a wrote:Sounds like a good plan! I shall be following this thread withj interest for ideas whilst continuing on the construction of the Fairfield Railway. Nice to see that my work on the FR has had an influence. Although currently, i'm not sure if we are now going for 2 different gauges or a double 45mm. Got to push my boss in the direction of having 32mm as I have nothing regaugable to 45mm at the moment!

On a side note, have you decided which part of your railway to lay first?
It will be O Gauge first, just an out and back to what will be the halfway point :)
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Post by MTA » Thu May 29, 2008 1:03 pm

I've just received the track and joiners from PPS 8)

As always, gret service from Alan.

I can't do anything with the track as yet, as I have a mountain of coursework to get through :cry:
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Post by MTA » Thu May 29, 2008 4:30 pm

The 4th Plan:

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I really don't want to have a mass of bridges and points all in one place. The only way out I can see is using dual gauge track :?
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Post by SillyBilly » Thu May 29, 2008 4:45 pm

If you build that and make a good job of it, I'm sure it'll look superb!

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Post by MuzTrem » Thu May 29, 2008 5:37 pm

Aye, certainly does look very ambitious!

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Post by steamyjim » Thu May 29, 2008 7:21 pm

I think that would look brilliant MTA!

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Post by MTA » Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:19 pm

I've put the fishplates on the sections of track I have, and plan to start surveying soon.

I am going to redo the plan again, to make things far more simpler.
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Post by MTA » Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:41 pm

As you can see, the plan is far simpler this time:

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I won't be adding in anyLGB track until this part has been completed.

The circuit on the right will be installed first, along with the point to allow the track to diverge off onto the branch at some point.
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Post by ACLR » Thu Jul 17, 2008 8:16 pm

Looks good Si :D

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Post by MTA » Thu Jul 17, 2008 8:23 pm

Thanks Graham :D

I hope to start surveying this Sunday. I just need some thick string, some line marking paint, some wooden stakes and boards and a spirit level :)
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Post by ACLR » Thu Jul 17, 2008 8:35 pm

keep us posted on the progress :D

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Post by MTA » Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:04 pm

I've just done a little bit of surveying and the tightest curves I can use are 3ft radius. I presume this is acceptable?

The station will be built on a slight curve to ease into the 3ft curves at either end.

I need to get some boards and stakes before I work out the gradients.
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Post by SillyBilly » Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:32 pm

All Roundhouse locos go around 2' radius so that sounds sensible to be :) .

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Post by laalratty » Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:01 pm

NO! If you are going to use flexitrack than only use 3 foot radius as an absolute last resort. I have done my upper loop reconstruction because I used a 3 foot radius curve when building it but couldn't get the joints done well. I'd say try to keep to a 4 foot min radius if possible (unless you use the set track which is curved to a constant radius with no kinks)
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Post by MTA » Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:33 pm

I do have some setrack on the way ;)
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Post by penrose » Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:36 pm

Just a word of advice Si, but I'd put a triangle in from the loop to the branch line, as per your previous plans. As you will know if you're following the thread on MRW I'm planning to (eventually) have the circuit-triangle-branch line formula on my "garden" railway. It allows a rather nice degree of operational freedom - with triangle you can run end to end from station A to station B over two different routes, or trundle from A back to A via B and the balloon loop, or of course leave the puffer trundling round the circuit when you just want to recline on a nice summers day with a cool drink in hand, watching the train go round...

Flexitrack should be fine on 3ft curves as long as you lay it well; as long as the track is secured firmly in place you won't get movement and kinking at the fishplates. Laying sleepers under the joints can help alleviate kinking, but I never had sleepers under joints and had no problems whatsoever with kinking on my 3 (defunct) 32mm gauge railways.

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