Friday, May 29, 2009

Building a good solid trackbed


Track bed
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker
In an effort to use up the excess blocks bought for the wall, we've been burying them in a trench and then joining them with concrete to act at the base for the garden railway track. Since setting the key stones nice and level and flat, the task has been "joining the dots" so to speak, by bridging the gaps between these.

One surprise has been just how wonky the garden is. On one side of the line the tops of the blocks are a couple of inches below the surface. On the other the trench is less than an inch deep. The circuit is pretty level. The main gradient is in the photo - about 2cm over 8 feet (yes I know I'm mixing imperial and metric units. I use the former for arm waving approximations and the later where some measurement is required) which I'm sure the trains will cope with easily enough. To get anything better would have required an awful lot more fiddling around in some surprisingly warm weather - and since every block has been laid flat both cross ways and length ways AND relative to its neighbours, there has been plenty of that.

Anyway, the lines has (hopefully) a good solid base that should last for many years. I just hope all this stuff is in the right place...

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