Roadbed

[Anonymous]

I plan to build up a significant mound of ballast out of a caliche/clay/earth mixture, which I will lay down a month before the track goes in. I will water it and add to it as needed to promote a sense of solidification. After that I will dig a trench in the center of that road bed and use traditional small grain gravel ballast with I will continue to build, manicure and maintain for the life of my layout as a real railroad would do.

If this is a fool’s errand, please advise…

[Anonymous]

Hi
My track base is possably a bit odd but then iit needs to be to cope with mine blasting and clay soil and when it rains it rains.
I compact crusherdust then dry lay bricks in an open weave sort of patern.
soil is built up the sides.
The track LGB girders (no scale rail on this line)is layed on the top with the indoor track clips fitted then loose ballasted.
Touch wood apart from the occasional ballast top up no seriouse movement yet.[:)]
regards john

[jtrost]

In soggy western Oregon, we don't have the freeze problems of the Canadians or New England folks. What we do have is MOLES. I have often wondered what they did about buffalo-sized burrowing animals when building the trans-continental railroad across the plains.

That aside, I am using Trex decking as my base. So far (almost 5 years) it has held up well and prevents the moles from lifting the track. Trex expands a bit in length with temperature and moisture, so spacing sections is necessary. My solution was to use 12 to 20 inch sections of Trex with plastic "biscuit joiners" between sections. This seems to work well. So well, in fact, that I cut my ties out of Trex and hand spiked aluminum rail. Now if the Oregon rain would just leave my ballast alone, I would be set.

[bman36]

Hey all,
Greetings from The Great White North eh!! My roadbed is 3/4 down limestone in a 12" deep trench. Gives good drainage. Track floats on this with granite for ballast. Pretty much the same deal as the 1:1 guys here in Manitoba. It's all buried under 3' drifts right now but melting as we speak! Winter sure left a load this year! Later eh...Brian.

[Anonymous]

I use DGA which is recycled concrete,which when it rains and dries it becomes almost like concrete again.El in Jersey

[Anonymous]

OLD DAD here, most of you probably know that I use spline roadbed made of TREX, god knows I've bent your ears about this more than a couple times. For those new to this forum I have a small back yard so my track is stacked like a small scale indoor layout. I also build my scenery with wire screening and cement similar to indoor practice.

[Anonymous]

When I screen the crusher fines I wrote about, I use a two stage screening process to obtain the scale size I want. I first used a piece of wire screen to eliminate the smaller pieces of material (the pure dust) into one bucket
and then used a second piece of larger wire screen to seperate the pieces I want (the actual track ballast) into a second bucket. All the leftover big chunks of rock are saved for reinforceing the sides of high fills where big chunks of rock are necessary to keep the track from washing away or sinking down. So basically, it goes : dust, track, ballast, chunks on the downward slopes. This is the way that railroads keep their trackwork from washing away,(I imagine you probably know that already). Without machines this method is pretty time consuming, so like I said, I'm planning on building a screening facility. I don't think the machine will really be hard to build, if they accept it I would like to publish free plans for it in Garden Railways. MJC.

[Anonymous]

When I screen the crusher fines I wrote about, I use a two stage screening process to obtain the scale size I want. I first used a piece of wire screen to eliminate the smaller pieces of material (the pure dust) into one bucket
and then used a second piece of larger wire screen to seperate the pieces I want (the actual track ballast) into a second bucket. All the leftover big chunks of rock are saved for reinforceing the sides of high fills where big chunks of rock are necessary to keep the track from washing away or sinking down. So basically, it goes : dust, track, ballast, chunks on the downward slopes. This is the way that railroads keep their trackwork from washing away,(I imagine you probably know that already). Without machines this method is pretty time consuming, so like I said, I'm planning on building a screening facility. I don't think the machine will really be hard to build, if they accept it I would like to publish free plans for it in Garden Railways. MJC.

[Anonymous]

Screening,

When you screen are you screening out the dust and using the leftovers, or do you screen out the chunks that are too big and use the smaller stuff?

Tom in DE

[Anonymous]

My own stretch of outdoor railroad is floating on scale ballast from a local rock quarry. I took crusher fines and screened them until they were the correct size for 1:29. I am going to build a motorized screener facility to churn out lots of this stuff (it's too time consuming otherwise!). This should provide an interesting industry for loads to originate from. The leftover dust is used as sub-ballast. This results in the most satisfying trackwork I have been able to construct. If the track moves, just scoot it back. The only maintainence necessary is occationally adding more ballast. I'm also building a ballast profile machine for upkeep.

[d4fal]

In Canada, everything moves even more (deeper frost). Floating has some credibility. My G-scale has a permanent track (if you call it that) that is built up on a bed of gravel and fines. The temporary trackwork, which is most of it, is removed in the winter and rebuilt every spring and floats on a bed of sand.

My other project, it's more prototypical, with a deep bed of gravel built up. It would cost too much to do much else with that one. Hard enough clearing the right of way. Every spring, once the frost is out of the ground, it is time to regrade the right of way and various other real track upgrades and re-alignments. I can see that I will be busy over the next few months doing that.

[vsmith]

My outdoor layout was planned to be floating ballast with brick edge liners, the indoor layout doesnt really count

[smcgill]

I'll bite!!
Floating track can move! In New England everything moves!
Didn't the rail roads us the same Idea!

P.S. Nice way of opening a can of worms!!!

[Rene Schweitzer]

The answers to this may vary depending on your climate. If you check "other," please tell us what you use.