Railroad design

[Frits]

Hello,

This is my railroad design story. Around the house we bought last oktober lies a "garden" of 1700 m2. You should say that's a nice piece of ground.

But....., unfortunaly it is only 17 m(55 feet) wide and on two sides surrounded by a ditch and most of the surface is a little bit below the waterlevel, therefore very wet and soft.

The house is located in the middle and just 3 feet from the bank of the backside ditch. So I have a left, a right and a front garden. The house and front garden are about 2 feet above the waterlevel. Because the driveway is crossing the railroad, both must be at the same level. For the reason that grades slow down your live-steam locomotives I prefer to level the railroad as much as possible.
To achive that we will raise the ground underneath the track and build several bridges to cross the water parts of the garden. With as a kind of masterpiece the construction of a 18 meter (60 feet) long metal bridge behind the house, just 2 or 3 feet over the ditch (parallel to the bank). Half of the 8 feet wide ditch is ours and the overside is my neighbours meadow.


You will understand that I have to use a lot of concrete for the foundation and also for some of the bridges.
The track will be of a aluminium profil screwed to oak wooden sleepers.

My tracklayout consist of 2 ovals, connected by a double cross and 2 triangles.


This allowes me to leave the station in the right oval in each direction and return in the same or opposite direction. It is also possible to drive around without passing the station in the left oval. Of cours the 3 track wide station has a small yard and there is a connection to my workshop/enginehouse.

I hope I have give you a clear picture of my future gardenrailroad, which hopefully will be rolled out in the next spring.

With regards

Frits, who has to do a lot of cleaning up in his new terrible neglected garden.

[Frits]

Hello modelrailroaders,

Here my theory to calculate your minimum radius of your track.

If I can put 24 vehicles in a 360°, I do consider that as a round circle. With less vehicles in the circle I say it's angular. Just my point of view.

Now you can calculate the maximum lenght of your vehicles.
(Radius x 2 x 3,14)/ 24

or reversed to find your minimum acceptable Radius:
(Max. Vehicle lenght x 24)/(3,14 x 2)

It maybe useful in your design.

With regards

Frits

[Brent Hudson]

Do not lay concrete on waterlogged ground unless it is a large base like the one in your photo!.One third of a meter wide strips to lay track on will move. Oak sleepers will rot unless they are sitting on a bitumen pad underneath. Believe me I have just spent £3000 replacing my sleepers. If the ground is wet dig a trench 1 meter deep along track right of way put in Terram place clay drain pipes in bottom, fill with 20mm Granite ballast level it with vibrator place track on top and after a seasons running top off ballast. Sleepers will last so much longer and you will drain site at the same time.
Have fun Brent Hudson

[Frits]

Do not lay concrete on waterlogged ground unless it is a large base like the one in your photo!.One third of a meter wide strips to lay track on will move.

Hello Brent,

Thank for your reaction.
Maybe I have to explain some more detail for a good understanding of my railroadsituation.
What I intend to do is build my 350 mm (1'-2") wide, 3" thick concrete trackpath continuous in one piece(or at least several very long pieces). Of course its armed with a steel network inside.
This technique is used to lay cycle-track (3' wide) here in this wed country.
In my case groundwater cannot reach the track because the concretepath is partly the top of a bridge, partly laying on a 2 feet raised sandbody, so the water is always far below the track.
The sleepers are treated with bruinoleum, a replacement for carboleum.
Test that I did over 2 years proved that even laying in direct contact with normaly ground in all season conditions the sleepers did not rot.

Further is one of my considerations that the sleepers, which I got for practical nothing, has to hold for about 10-15 years. (I'm 60 years old now)
In case of some sleepers do give in sooner, I will replace them for a new one, which I keep in spare just like the railwaycompagny do.

For optical reason mostly, I will put split or gravel between the sleepers.
On strategic places the track will be connected to the concrete, considering the temperature extention problems. For that same reason there are some exstention-connections in the track.
By laying the concretesurface just a little bit tilt, the water will flow away. Most of the track will be curved so this tilt will be no problem at all.

I hope you now have a clear picture of my future railroad. In case you will discus some further detail please let me know, because all information I can get I do appreciate.

with regards

Frits

[Brent Hudson]

hi Fritz
well the main problem so far is the pumping of the track as the train goes along.I secured my track every 3 mtrs and the ballast slowly works under the sleepers giving a fairground ride after several years. You need to secure the track at less than 1/2 mtre intervals to stop this and having Bitumen also stops the creeping ballast. Its very cunning you know like ants first a bit of dust then a chip then before you know where you are great bits of Kilomanjiro pushing the track up! On mainlines I secure every sleeper and sidings every other sleeper. Do not use Brass Screws as these are not like they were in the old days but Stainless Screws from Screwfix.com Screws are No 18200 Washers are No69609. I buy them by the thousand at a time I don`t know if thousands are metric or imperial but screwfix seem to know so leave it to them. Now stop typing and get on building having a railway is great fun and we will visit you .
Brent

[Frits]

Hi Brent,

I do agree with you that if the railbed isn't flat your track will move up and down when there is a train passing by. Therefore it is neccesary to fix the track frequently in order to avoid it is creeping away. One should use a right number of sleepers per meter, this will help to get a steady track, which is able to carry the trains rolling on it.

A solid railbed is a good start for a long lasting railroad.

I will pay much attention in constructing my layout.

Thanks for your advices. That's where we learn from.

Greating from Holland

Frits

[Frits]

Hi guys,

In my first topic I told you that our garden was very wet. As a result of having nearly the same level as the surrounding ditche. Thats what we supposed.
Guess what?

Trimming the trees on the side of the road I spot a little pool of water between the grass. So what, you should say, there is lots of water in the garden.
But this little pool was a few inches higher than the waterlevel in the garden. How did that get there?
When I inspected it closer I could see that the water was flowing down to my garden. And after a while we found some more of these pools higher up alongside of the road. Because there was no rain fallen in the last days the water must be flowing upwards out of the ground. Could it be a spring?
No not obviously. Then there is only one conclusion to make.

The mainwatersupply pipe is leaking!!

So I called the watersupplycompagny and they send someone to see for themselves. And he agree with me. Soon they will come to fix it.

God knows for howlong this situation has going on. Maybe our garden is not so wet afterall.

We will see in the next few weeks if the waterlevel drops.

For the timebeing it looks like this.


With regards

Frits

[Brent Hudson]

Grief the Polderlands! Well you will be able to tell us all about how to build embankments and could run frog specials now there`s a thought, infact enough frogs for all our points! Perhaps you are in the wrong hobby boats comes to mind or swamp aero planes Happy sailing we have a water shortage over hear so don`t waste it
Brent

[Frits]

Hello,

@Brent, of course all your suggestions have some value and I like your joke about the frogs in my future turnouts.
In the meadow behind our house we several times spotted a beautiful wild stork. (there goes my frogs. )

Still I'm a 5" railroader and no matter what circumstances I do find here, there will be a railroad running in the near future, believe me. We dutchman are always in a kind of battle with water. And we seldom lose that battle.

It's a matter of fakt, that today I hired a mini-dragline and started to pull out the stumps which remain after we saw the superfluos trees in the garden. When this work is finished we start to bring up a layer of sand topped off with soil for the garden.

Ok, I'm bussy for a while, I'll keep you posted.



Greatings from Holland.

Frits

[Frits]

Hi guys,

Being busy the last months with my house and garden, I still read and write in my fora.
Here are some pictures of my new garden after we bring in 160 m3 sand, soil and lots of concrete.



In the meantime there are already some vegetables and new plants growing.
We were in despared need of a garden shed because all the garden stuff is now temporary in my workshop.
After we layed a concrete foundation for the shed, we bought one and put it together and stored our garden machinery in it.
My first goal now was to construct several nice looking concrete footpads, covered with fine split, through the garden in order to keep our feet as dry and clean as possible and the paths bring structure in the garden.




Second we are building a wider path along the edge of the garden on which we build a low wall for two reasons.
First as a windshield for the garden and second as a rainshield for our firewood. And maybe third as a part of the tunnel for the railroad, about this item I'm thinking of.




Anyway the concrete path is also to carry the track which is a loop through the garden around the shed, with a small station or siding there.

Next time I tell you more about it.

Frits