Track Bed opinions

[Sp1d3y]

i have two  large oak trees over my GRW and when the leaves fall is like a foot  of leaves covering everything. I'm looking for track laying ideas to make it easy each year when cleaning up the leaves and having a nice track roadbed to look at throughout the other parts of the year.

If you have any opinions on how I should lay the track it would be great. I live in florida so I can do just about anything and not worry about expansion and contraction etc.

I was looking at lifting the track bed slightly off the ground in certain areas because of the grass and land etc. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated and pics would be too.

 

Thanks

[smcgill]

You could do the basic track floating in stone dust or step it  up with concrete roadbed ( Marty )

then you can use one of these! 

watch?v=LAXxFnmbm70 

Regular leafblowers work good too.

Sean

 

[IRB Souther Engineer]

That's awesome. What did you use for the motor?

[smcgill]

Have it hooked up to batt. now!

[Camaro1967]

I am in very dense woods-large beech, oak, and maple trees,  and part of my layout is elevated and part is on the ground.  I have found that the elevated portion seems to accumulate no leaves, they just fall or blow off. But the on ground portion gets the foot of leaves you talk about.  So elevated helps if you like that.  Otherwise get a cordless blower and clean it off before running.

Paul

[two tone]

Hi  Im in the UK and have put my track bed on thrme lite blocks they are light wieght and will cut very easy  so that you can curve your track as you wish, I put the blocks on sand to get a level ,ive had no problem with the bed moving.      Hope this helps

[Rex in Pinetop]

I have about 25 large pine trees plus some oak over my layout.  I have a mess when the pine needles drop this time of year.   A leaf blower doesn't work very well on pine needles in tight places so I resort to the rake which isn't very kind to the little people hot glued to nails holding them in place.   Last year I got creative with the balast glue (Tite bond III and water) however this year the leaf rake seems to grab chunks of the glued balast so that hasn't worked either.  The wide balasted areas of track where the leaf rake fits clean up the easiest.  The areas around the buildings and people require a lot of hand work.  I have found that my trains really don't like pine needles.  They wind up twisted on the axles or just flat derail everything.   At times I've felt like using a blow torch!!!

Rex

[SNOWSHOE]

I also got a lot of leaves.  The best way to fight the battle is when the leaves start dropping I take my buildings ect.  in. (Thats the time I fix any damaged buildings and put a coat of wood sealer on them)  Then I use the leaf blower to get the leaves off.  I usually have to deal with it for a few weeks then I put everythjing back out for the winter.  I was never a fan of elevated track unless its being held up with a bridge/trestle.

[captain perry]

The best option is to have the track raised...It need not be waist hight but just enough to be above the sorrounding landscape.  avoid any "cuts" as they will fill solid with leaves when the wind blows.

I use a broom to sweep the leaves off the line...it is a lot kinder on the track than a rake.  try to get them up before a heavy rain squeezes them into a solid mat.

[Steam on the Bel Del]

I floated most of my track in ballast and blow off the leaves with an electric blower (really my sears shop vac motor in the blow mode). not as powerful as a gas powered blower. There is a web site that says to mix water and Titebond III to fix the ballast in place, I haven't tried this yet. (3 parts water to one part Titebond, I think) 

[dmikee]

My track is laid on redwood fence boards with redwood 1" lath nailed to the edges. It is then put down with a paver or conc. brick separating the wood from the ground and bark chips. It sits up just enough so you can sweep and blow the debris off the track. Forget ballasting. I use a barbeque hook to raise short sections of the track while my buddy runs the gas blower - everything that isn't track is gone. Except at critical points such as bridges and turnouts, let all the track float.