A Garden Railway Pipedream: the odyssey continues

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi,

Back outside. With the weather set fair, it struck me as a good day to do a bit of painting on the boards. In the end I chose to use some green concrete paint. I'll let you know whether that was a good decision in a couple of years :).

I also needed a new strimmer, but that's another story. We wire brushed the top surface to get rid of droppings etc, strimmed and raked the grass (rare Smartie points there) and painted the edges of about 1/4 of the route, one coat before lunch, one coat after.

P1010232a.jpg

P1010227a.jpg

The centre was left unpainted to provide better adhesion for the ballast glue. It does mean that there is no reason that we can't lay track on this section....apart from the fact I don't have enough, nor any ballast, or glue come to that.

We had managed to get outside the previous Wednesday and cut the board edges into a gentle curve, a job that we had not managed to do last year.

P1010225a.jpg

P1010226a.jpg

We have started to mark the centre line of the inside track.

While we were painting the boards, the human dynamo, Allan was finishing off the cable trays for the steaming up and stock storage areas.

P1010228a.jpg

P1010229a.jpg

P1010230a.jpg
looking at the bottom picture, you can see some white stakes in the ground to the right of the poles. This marks the edge of the level concrete pad that the steaming up area and stock sidings will stand on. It extends 2 ft beyond the right tracks, 2 ft at the back (nearest camera) and extends to the fence. The idea is that the steam up area is on the left with 2 tracks, and there is room for a couple of benches against the fence, and the stock area has 3 sidings with plenty of room to move around and between the tracks. It will all be at the same level when the heights have been adjusted.

I reckon 3 more days to finish the boards, then the concrete pad, then the viaduct.

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi,

I'm a bit late posting these, but last week's work saw us fit the last of the surface boards.

P1010247a.jpg

P1010249a.jpg

P1010251a.jpg

P1010252a.jpg

P1010253a.jpg

We spent today levelling the whole circuit and then cutting nice curves into the rather too angular storage (right) and steam up (left) boards. I shall take some photos tomorrow, but they flow much better now. In the meantime, I am putting together the track order, and we should start laying in the next couple of weeks.:)

Richard
 

jamiepage

Western Thunderer
Richard,
I must say this is an extremely useful thread, thank you very much for it.

Can I ask two questions?

1. You mentioned you brought the gap between posts in to 1.2m to suit the Hardie Backer Board lengths. Do I understand that correctly? I can't see the need- can't the top boarding just be bolted to the cable tray top, irrespective of gap between posts? I can see the need for cable tray lengths to be limiting, but not what goes on top.

2. The cable trays are 225mm wide. What do you reckon would be a reasonable maximum width of the board top? How much overhang feels ok? Not to stand on, just railway operations.

Apologies if you have already answered those points in the write ups - and even more apologies if I've already asked them in the past and received a reply from you! (Advancing years, alas).

Thank you
Jamie
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hello Jamie,

1) Yes, you have understood it correctly. I was originally going to set posts at 1.5m intervals (less on curves). When I got the cable trays, I felt that they were more flexible longitudinally than I wished. I may have been anticipating a problem that would never have occurred, but I felt there was a possibility of sag long-term. Shortening the post intervals to 1.2m, 1.12m on curves, would reduce the possibility and provide more support for the Backer Board. The posts do not seem too close together. Whether it was necessary, I simply don't know. Everything I have done has been in an attempt to reduce long-term maintenance or issues.

2) There is no transverse strength in the cable trays, so you are effectively relying on the 6 inch plate on the scaffold jacks for the real strength. The Backer Board is tough, and I have no problems with my 320mm main line width. You will notice that the main storage roads are wider, and these are 480mm on 300mm cable trays. They seem perfectly strong. The trouble with all these things is that you don't know whether what you have done is right until a few years down the road.

Cheers,

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi,

I took the photos on what is a lovely sunny day - should be watching the trains go round!

Flat boards with gentle curves:)

P1010254a.jpg

P1010255a.jpg

P1010257a.jpg

P1010256a.jpg

And a room with a view

P1010258b.jpg
Now we know exactly where things go, we are going to start to think about plantings and further blending in the layout.

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Almost too hot to work outside on Wednesday - we were forced to retreat to the pub:)

It was time to work out the pointwork requirements so I could start building. I had a roll of paper so we attached a few meters where the action was, and set to with tape, pen and flexible plastic length to ascertain the positions and radii. Very old school, but satisfying to see it take shape.

P1010311a.jpg

The double track main line was marked out first, and then the points off, using track to try and get an idea of clearance and size. I am still unused to thinking in G1 terms.

This pic shows the access to the storage area and the steam up area - there is a crossover to the right of the access off the main

P1010313a.jpg

I have a hardboard 10 ft template which was used (dotted line) to ensure the radii were above 10ft

P1010314a.jpg

P1010315a.jpg

I now have to get from these unknown radii to a Templot template. I have 4 straight L/R 10ft, maybe 11ft nominal radius points to build for the storage area and steam up bay, 3 curved points (2 in the photos, 1/2 of the crossover) of indeterminate radius, and a straight right (the other 1/2 of the crossover) at a nominal 18ft radius, a total of 8 points.

And finally, we have laid some track on Cookies storage sidings, so named because It's his track repurposed.

P1010312a.jpg

Richard
 

delticfan

Active Member
Very inspirational, I've been pondering over a method of support for a garden track for ages now and I like the idea of adjustable scaffold legs. The wife has insisted it doesn't stay up all year so I might try concreting a scaffold tube length say 400mm long into the ground so it doesn't project above ground level and slotting the leg into it. If that doesn't work I might ditch the wife and go permanent - only joking lol!!
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi,

I've finally got round to processing this video. I spent a fair amount of time adding radio control to the 80000 tank on the basis I would want to test the track sometime, before I got round to wiring it up. It was nice to see something running and it sure has presence. I have not yet got round to synchronising the sound to the wheel revolutions.....obviously.


Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
OK, we didn't start laying track as Clive had done his back in.

Instead Roger and Brian built 16 6ft track panels.....

P1010351a.jpg
... which gives us 34 panels or 1/2 of the main loop.

I started to build pointwork, kindly Templotted by JimG of this parish. It's big in G1! I found that the self-locking timbers from Cliff-Barker self-locked at the wrong widths, so I went with the Templot spacings.

P1010352a.jpg

P1010353a.jpg

These are the points off the outer main line towards the steaming up and storages roads. I can just get them on a 6ft board.

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
More progress:

The second point is timbered:

P1010360a.jpg

and the first point has the first stock rail laid:

P1010361a.jpg

As a reminder, the gauge will be 44.45 mm with 2.5 mm flangeway gaps. For that, you need bespoke gauges, and once again JimG came to my rescue with these CNC beauties.

P1010357.JPG

I shall build these 2 points and then test them extensively to make sure the gauge narrowing has worked as intended with no drop in the Vee and better support throughout the crossing.

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
OK, I knew I had to face up to soldering the stainless steel rail to form vees.

The advantage of having Templotted pointwork is that I could print out additional copies to work to in forming the rail for the vees. No problems forming it - the rail section is just bigger than I'm used to. I used a linisher to rough file the pieces and hand-filed as a final operation.

Attempt 1... The rails were set out on a heat proof block, and I followed Cliff Barkers instructions, using his flux. Abject failure. No solder stuck to anything.

Attempt 2... I meticulously cleaned everything up and used some flux JimG had given me. Just less than abject failure. I did have a big blob of solder firmly stuck to the top of the rails, but nothing between the pieces.

Give up and go to bed.....

Attempt 3... Jim had also left a section of rail showing solder properly wetting the rail using his flux, so I knew it was possible. Another meticulous clean up, but this time I tinned each part of the rail separately and with lots of solder. Then filed flat, then brought the parts together with more flux and microflamed them together. Success - a very strong joint.

I was, however, worried about the electrical connection side of it, in that I had been using a lot of heat and thought I would melt a whole load of sleepers if I continued in similar fashion. I had a chat with Simon at LarkRail as he had obviously managed, and had very unobtrusive joints on his layout. He advised me that he had just used a phosphoric acid based flux and not had any problems. Now I've been using home-brewed flux for years as standard. A chemist I acted for 25 years ago gave me some 95% phosphoric acid, and I've still got 1/4 left. I thought to give that a try. Blow me, it tinned a treat using a standard 50 watt iron.

Attempt 4... using my own flux. I lightly tinned both sides of the rail, brought them together, heated it with a microflame and added more solder. Total success:)

I now had 2 vees that I could use on the pair of points under construction, and had worked out how to deal with the electrical side. Result.

P1010355a.jpg

P1010356a.jpg
Richard
 
Last edited:
Top