HI EVERYBODY, WE STARTED BUILDING OUR GARDEN RAILROAD BACK IN OCTOBER BEFORE THE GROUND FROOZE, WE LIVE IN CANADA ABOUT 30 KMS NORTH OF RED DEER ALBERTA.
WHAT WE DID WAS TO RAISE THE WHOLE BED 1FT WITH LANDSCAPING TIES, BUT WE HAVE MADE IT WALK-AROUND, LIKE THE H O CAT MOUNTAIN AND SANTE FE. WE LUCKED OUT WITH FILL WHEN WE HAD THE GARAGE BASE DUG, THE EXCAVATOR DRIVER SCRAPED THE TOP SOIL OFF AND FILLED THE RAILROAD, VERY NICE.
WORK HAS STOP UNTIL THE GROUND UN-FREEZES, ONE ADVANTAGE TO RAISING THE BED, IS IF YOU HAVE TO CUT THE GRASS AROUND THE LAYOUT IT DOES NOT GO EVERYWHERE.
THE BENDING OVER SO FAR IS ANOTHER, AND THE GRAND KIDS GET A GREAT VIEW.
WE BELONG TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN GARDEN RAILWAY CLUB IN CALGARY AND WE HAVE JUST BUILT A MODULAR "G" LAY-OUT, AND THE MAIN CONCERN WAS MAKING SURE THE KIDS COULD SEE IT PROPERLY.
THATS IT FOR NOW, DAVE AND DEBBIE, SUNSET DEPOT.
http://rides.webshots.com/album/547283539pPilnH
I have a raised roadbed, ordered 10 tons of top soil. My son and I picked up the rocks for free, the buildings and (future) town will be in the middle. Just started mine this past spring.
The main thing, once you start dumping dirt, start walking on it and let nature help pack it down. This will be my first winter for the GRR, so far it looks like it should hold up fine.
dan
grandpopswalt wrote:Mark,I clicked your link and got the text but no photos. I don't know if the problem's on my end or yours.<>Walt
Mark,
I clicked your link and got the text but no photos. I don't know if the problem's on my end or yours.
<>Walt
Walt;
Check your settings under preferences. Photos work fine on the six computers I just used to look with.
Tom Trigg
Yes John this is a problem and you have hit the nail right on the head. All of the raised layouts i have seen have looked to some extent like that. This is not to say they are not very nice well thoughtout layouts. I think "G" gauge is the only one you have much hope of achieveing much realism and getting them up off the ground is very labour saving in the long run but they do often tend to look a bit more artificial.
Rgds ian
Hi,
I run my garden railway at about 36" off the floor On30 that is. Although at this height some people describe it as an outdoor layout not a garden railway.
www.rjroriginals.co.uk/rjr_branch_line.htm
John
RJR Originals
Why not buy some rubbishy old rocks or concrete scraps and use that as filler, it may work out cheapper and provide some drainage.
Ian
Hello there,
i am in the same boat. We have considered all sort of materials and right now I think we are settled on pressure treated landscape tembers to raise our bed about 3 feet off the ground. The landscape timbers around here run for about $5 for six foot lengths. It looks like the cheapest option we have found. The fill dirt may be most expensive at $25 per bobcat scoup. I plan on picking it up in my pickup and carrying it to our back yard one wheelbarrow at a time.
I am on vacation this week and I plan on starting work on the project tomorrow. I can post pictures if anyone is interested.
iandor wrote: Jack, although we are two very similar blokes; don't you think it's odd that we are doing two very similar things at the same time on our railways?Rgds Ian
Jack, although we are two very similar blokes; don't you think it's odd that we are doing two very similar things at the same time on our railways?
Rgds Ian
Hmmmm......... interesting, very interesting...................
The Dixie D Short Line "Lux Lucet In Tenebris Nihil Igitur Mors Est Ad Nos 2001"
If you still think you might want to take a shot at raised roadbed sometime in the future, consider this. Since you can't get trucks/dirt/bobcats, etc into your backyard you're pretty much limited to raised platforms or tables. I've concluded that you can construct a fairly sturdy 4'X8' table for just under $100 out of PTL lumber and galvanized corrugated panels. But this does not include soil, mulch, rock, etc. And using Bob's suggestion of a series of "islands", a couple of these tables connected by someother, lower cost, method of supporting the roadbed, you might be able to get your elavated railroad without having to take out a second mortgage.
Walt
BTW, I was able to get to your photos. Nice work and you've really got a lovely assistant there, you're a lucky guy!
Great look layout you got there Sir. Notice some really good help was assisting you as well.
Thanks for fixing the problem with viewing the pictures.
Best regards.
Bob,
Thanks for sharing your experience. I certainly want to avoid getting all that topsoil delivered. Plus, I can't get a truck around to my backyard, wheelbarrows only, so that would be impossible in my lifetime. I was searching for some kind of happy medium, in which the railroad is raised, but massive backfilling, and climbing up on it to work on it, are avoided. I think your idea about connected peninsulas is a good one. I'm going to have to think about that one some.
Oh, to those of you that could not view the pictures of my small garden train, I've fixed the problem. The site is the same: http://home.comcast.net/~mark.mabry/GardenTrainConstruction2006.htm
Mark
I have a fairly large raised layout which incoporates a big pond. The outer retaining wall is 28" high so that if a train were on the track I could sit on a stool to work on it. To fill it to the top of the wall excluding the pond area required 30 12 wheeler truckloads of fill. I added another 9 truckloads on top to make mountains.
My error was in making the whole thing a raised island. I should have made a series of connecting peninsulas so as to access the interior portions as I am now climbing a ladder to get up onto the layout, then having to crawl around to work on things in the middle!
Raised is better as we are all getting older, our eyes weaker, our bodies less flexible, and our minds less willing to make our bodies contort!
No matter what we do, there are things we would do differently the next time around; therefore, the thing is to just get on with it!
That looks good Jack; I am doing something a bit similar in my area 1, the idea of using bricks similar to what you have done actually came from this fiorum. I hadn't thought of it myself.
I am rendering my bricks with some stuff that they wrote up in GR back in 1997 i think it is called Glocpata or similar and it has really good potential, Rene got me the article some time ago.
rgds ian
I cheated a little on my raised roadbed. I used left over bricks from the rebuild of my house and PVC pylons with 3/4" treated ply. The PVC/Ply is now covered with a viaduct. Very cheap and easy to do.
Hi everyone,
Thanks for all the input on the queston of raised railroad beds. I agree that it is an individual preference and I appreciate hearing all of your opinions since it will help me decide, as a newcomer, which way to try next.
As for those that cannot see my photos...That drives me crazy. Could someone tell me what kind of error they get? Does the icon of pictures with broken links show up? Can you view this image, the first one on the website?
Panorama Photo
Thanks,
Greetings,
Like Kim I prefer ground level. OK it is harder on the knees but has the advantage of interest as the line wanders around the garden and appears behind plants, small bushes etc. My newly constructed layout is on a slight slope and therefore parts are raised by 12 to 18 inches and other parts are at ground level.
As the garden, and that is where the railroad is (not the other way around), is a shared area my wife has taken a great interest and has planted more suitable plants and made one or two stone/earthwork features to complement the right of way. I suppose if there is a large area an elevated structure may not look out of place but in a small area elevated structures can be ugly. I must admit an elevated structure is easier to work upon.
Anyway each to his own as they say, and it does make life more interesting.
Alan, Oliver & North Fork Railroad
https://www.buckfast.org.uk/
If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Lewis Carroll English author & recreational mathematician (1832 - 1898)
As with all things in this hobby, it's a personal thing. Do you want a garden with a RR in it or a RR with a garden here and there? I like mine at ground level and helicopter or no helicopter I can watch the train snake its way around the garden and blend in with it in places. If others don't like that then they construct their's in whatever fashion they wish. It's your RR, build it how you want.
Cheers,
Kim
Walt,
I've had one other person say the same thing, but others can see it fine. I do not know what the problem is yet.
From my point of view you have hit the nail on the head it is hard work and costly to have a raised layout but whether it is worth it or not is an individual decision.
Your idea of low slung chairs might not workout.
Okay, this is sort of what I was thinking, that raising a large railroad area would be difficult and expensive. Plus, if saving knees and back are the goals, all the railroad must be near the edge of the raised land. Maybe that is not a problem, but it certainly puts some limitations on the scenery.
I agree with Walt that the eye-level view, or close, is superior to the helicopter view. This is the reason that I am investigating raising some or all of the railroad. But right now, I feel that much of my time might be saved and my $$ might be better spend on a few nice outdoor chairs to bring the eyes down closer to the railroad, rather than bringing the railroad up to the eyes. I think I will still have some elevation in the railroad, to go up a mountain or something, but that is to add variation and because we like mountain railways.
As I mentioned, here is a link to some pictures and description of our simple garden railway. We chose to start slow, to make sure our daughter was interested. Of course, my interest in growing rapidly, and now I want to model some of the large Southern mainline trains I used to see growning up in Alabama. Photos
My layout is on a slope. To make a level spot for the town and the yard I built a retaining wall and back filled with dirt. This makes the front part of the layout at waist level and has given me lots of comparison to working at ground level and working on a raised trackbed.
For looks, you can't beat the raised portion and I use it for the more detailed models and the things I want my visitors to have an up close and personal view.
For building the layout, there is no comparison to working on something that is raised over something you have to get on your belly to work on. Track work is three to four times faster on the raised portion.
A raised layout also gives you a greater variation on the topology. Rivers, streams and hills are more easily included.
For operations, do an experiment. Try putting a bunch of cars correctly on a track at work bench level and then try the same thing on the floor. I don't bend or see as well now as I use to and find having the wheels where I can see them makes it far easier to make up a train. If you plan to run live steam, it is very difficult to service an engine laying prone on the ground.
For the downside, my layout consumed copious quantities of fill dirt. Moving the dirt has consumed more hours than laying the track.
If you do go with a layout built on fill, make sure the fill dirt has had plenty of time to settle before laying roadbed. I use a product from Mainline Enterprise (now owned by Spit Jaw) so I can get the roadbed in before the last of the dirt is backfilled to the track level.
Various parts of my layout are raised but most is not. I think it is a bit sweeping to say one is better than the other. My opinion has been for some time; after viewing many layouts, that raised is harder to do but easier to operate when it is finished especially if you are getting on in age as am i.
It is true if you raise your track you do have to raise your trackside stuff as well and in some cases this can be very hard to do.
What Walt says is right, you do have to use treated timber (lumber) and it can be expensive but it can be a lot easier to use year in and year out. I had not thought of what Walt has said about having a helicopter view, he is quite right of course but it has never affected me at all. ie i have not been adversly affected by this type of view.
Yes, you do have to raise the level of at least your roadbed to the elavation that you've chosen. And any sidings, yards, industries, towns, etc also have to be at the same level. And yes it is difficult and very expensive. However, it is the best way to build a scale model railroad, in my humble opinion.
I had concluded that the only way I'd proceed with my outdoor layout was to elavate it to at least 3 feet. It's a personal preference, but I am just turned off by the "helicopter view" you get with ground level layouts. I examined the cost and labor of using dirt/rock/retaining walls and also using pressure treated lumber "tables" to accomplish this. My conclusion? It's way, way too expensive and difficult. Instead I'm building an On30 indoor layout at a 40" elavation. I'll run this layout in the winter and when I want to run trains "realistically". My LS "garden railroad" will be at ground level and designed to be smaller and much less detailed and ambitious than originally planned. The essence of operation will be to have scale trains running through the flowers with just a couple detailed stops to add interest.
I hope this new approach will satisfy all the aspects of what I want from model railroading.
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