No Need for Green Thumb Yet… Though a Contractor Wouldn't Hurt  - Surveying for Garden Rail

OK… maybe you don't need a contractors license, although it sure wouldn't hurt. When planning your spring and summer fun time with your garden railroad, you'll definitely need some tools more suited for the outdoors as apposed to those spoiled tools of the trade you normally store in house. Shovels, levels, saws, drainage tubes… Heck, you may even need to pour a footer. All these vises of creation and destruction are needed in your quest for fun and relaxation!

Your first move when plotting a garden railroad layout is to scope the lay of the land. Determine your slope or degree of decline and elevation in order to figure out where your bridges, culverts and trestles will be forged.

If the slope of your yard is to great then be ready to level it off to such a degree it doesn't, cause any construction problems such as flooding or difficulties crafting traversable track layouts.

We'll Draft a List of Items to Make This Quick and Painless

• 3 [2x2's] of adequate size to survey your designated plot
• Carpenters level to place on horizontal 2×2 when determining flushness
• A helping hand… as this is a two person endeavor
• and this Formula for calculating grade… Grade = Change in Elevation divided by Distance

Once you and your apprentice, spouse or friend have made absolutely sure that all is plume… then its time for the next step… Bullwork!

Bullwork is a nasty word for – Working your butt off! This may be the heaviest lifting you'll ever do in the model train hobby. Bullwork will require you to lift and place hand picked blocks of concrete that will form your retaining wall.

If concrete isn't quite to your liking then perhaps limestone or some other hard heavy inexpensive girthy material will do.

You'll need to build your retaining wall up to grade. You do this by filling in the area inside the wall with earth and gravel. As all this is being completed remember to account for any streams and ponds needing excavation. Classy model trains.com will detail the intricacies of stream and pond creation in future posts as the are separate monsters within themselves. So lets move to the next step… Roadbed.

For most environments rocks of relatively equal size are recommended. In truth there is no finite method of crafting roadbed. It ultimately depends on your environment.

A safe recourse is to construct roadbed as it is prototypically done. On true to life rail, the track actually rests in the thick layers of ballast. This will allow for your rail to sit as the temperatures change causing the track to shrink and expand during summer and winter seasons. You may find yourself adjusting track once or twice a year but thats a small price to pay for cheating mother matures attempt at derailing your masterpiece.

Dig 2" or 3" trench, fill with ballast until it's just shy of grade. Now the fun starts. Lay track and make sure ballast is level or you will hate yourself later. To make leveling easy try to use flatter rocks as rounded stones will undoubtedly roll shifting your track out of sink.

Classymodeltrains.com will review additional rockbed techniques in future posts but for know this will give you a push in the wright direction.

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Related Model Train Posts

Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes Leaves YOU a Piece of History – Baldwin 2-4-4T Forney

In 1861 Mathias Forney, a life long railroad man, designed and patented the first of a long line of Forney concept locomotives. The Forneys where special in that they came equipped with trailing trucks attached to their coal compartments. Forney also managed to attach the tender and engine into one solid unibody.

Forneys where manufactured by many companies in the early years of steam and where crafted to run primarily on narrow width track. 

In 1908 the SR&RL railroad was the grandest two foot narrow rail company in the United States. She was formed in Main after the turn of the century. Her humble beginnings where mastered by the merging of two obscure early 20th century railroads, the Franklin & Megantic and the Phillips & Rangely. Three years later this tandem team procured another up and coming rail company, the Eustis.

The SR&RL ran passenger cars and freight clear into the 1930s. Due to the rail companies versitility it was equipped with engines capable of both pulling freight and people. The most famous of which is the Baldwin built 2-4-4T Forney Steam Locomotive.

As she was slated to haul both passengers and freight she was one of the larger narrow gauge engines rolling on the two foot SR&RL lines. Her top speed was reported to be an astounding 70mph!

Bachmann: brings this gem to you in 1:20.3 scale

Large Scale: Baldwin 2-4-4T Forney Steam Locomotive

Realistic Scenery and Layouts – How to Articles that Will Give "YOU" the Skinny On Creating Life Like Scenes

Model Train Scenery and Structures

Realistic scenery is everything when it comes to building authentic, life like miniatures. There are a handful of tricks used to create active, moving layouts. ClassyModelTrains.com will share these tricks of the trade with you in the form of  informative how to articles.

There are subtle differences in preparing the various gauges of scenes. We'll do all that we can to cram your head full of this knowledge and hopefully you'll bless classymodeltrains.com with a photo or two. We're always looking for individuals like "yourself" to send in pictures and videos of your hobby in action!   

Within the confines of our model train scenery and model railway layout department, you'll run across articles and resources for:

1. Building Tunnels
2. Crafting Bridges
3. Building up realistic rock bed
4. Finding life like accessories
5. How to articles regarding weathering and painting
6. Locating merchants who offer hard to find structures and moldings
7. How to build structures from scratch
8. Access to auctions that span the globe for exotic accessories representing all scales and gauges

…And much more!

 VISIT: Amazon.com for these and many more of "YOUR" Model Train Supplies and Locomotives…

Large Scale Locomotives — Their Popularity is Timeless

Due to their obvious size, large scale or gauge 1 locomotives jump out and catch individuals off guard. Their incredible detail is only rivaled by the real thing. This is undoubtedly the main attraction of giant miniatures.

In addition, their large scale allows for easy maintenance, and detailing is considerably easier to manage as your hands will have no trouble, cutting, drilling, painting or setting up intricate layouts for these popular miniature locomotives.

Large Scale Numerically Breaks Down Into This Ratio –

• Large Scale is Represented by Two Different Ratios No. 1 Scale = (1:32) and Gn3 Scale = (1:22.5)
• This translates No. 1 as (1) inch on the miniture… representing (32) inches and Gn3 Scale = (22.5) inches for every (1) inch of model.
• LG Scale (Track) Gauge = 45mm or 1¾ (distance between "running" track)

Within the confines of our large scale department, you'll run across:

1. Large Scale Layouts
2. Large Scale Scenery
3. Large Scale Figurines
4. Large Scale Structures
5. Large Scale Locomotives
6. How to Articles
7. Gauge #1 Track
8. Large Scale Books & Magazines
9. Garden Scale Locomotives & Accessories

And much more!