Advice needed for crazy idea

[Anonymous]

I am building a beach house. The house will be some 100 yards back from the beach, but I will have a gazebo at the beach edge.

I would like to build a railway to link the kitchen in the house to the gazebo (!). Besides just the pleasure of having a garden railway, I would like to use it as a transport system to send e.g. wine bottles, snacks, glassses, and maybe even plates/food to the gazebo. There is probably a 1% or 2% incline.

Has anyone has experience with this kind of setup? Is G-scale big enough?

[cabbage]

Actually there was an article in Garden Rail in the UK about a Spanish hotel that has a small underpass under the car park to transport drinks to the beach front bar. So -yes it is possible!!!

I think there track was LGB -but for obvious reasons the wine carraf transporters were bespoke.

regards

ralph

[altterrain]

Not so crazy. You'll need a couple of big locos (LGB Uinitah mallets, AristoCraft Dash 9's or E-8's or the like) with some extra weights to pull heavy loads. Also you will need big flat cars and gondolas. Since you have a seaside locale you should use stainless steel track for track power or battery/RC power (though the stainless is still a good idea).  Elevated track on composite decking or PVC wood on pvc pipe piers set in concrete (to deal with the wind) should do the trick. A very do-able and fun idea.

 -Brian

[Anonymous]

Would this one do?

http://www.shopatron.com/product/product_id=LGB25851/394.0

it has only one set of traction wheels, but the other LGB mallets were limited editions costing 4,779.

How much weight could one of these pull?

Can it pull the same weight as it could push going backwards?

[altterrain]

That's the one though you can do better on the price here - http://tinyurl.com/33paq9.  I don't know exactly how much the can pull except its a lot. Hopefully a LGB guy can chime in. Of course for that price you could pick up two or three of the others mentioned. There are lots of big locomotive power options depending on your tastes. The AristoCraft Mallet for big American steam, Bachmann 3 truck shays for geared steam, etc.

-Brian 

[vsmith]

Well if it works for this Sushi bar in Taiwan  why not in your backyard?

Go for it!

[Anonymous]

 

Thanks again for your advice.

 

When you say "with some extra weights to pull heavy loads" could you explain what you mean? Can one add extra weights to the Mallet in order to improve traction on the track?

Another question: How is LGB doing? I read something about them maybe having problems.

[altterrain]

The Aristo diesels can have additional weights installed for added traction. I do not think the LGB mallet would need them (but I'm not very knowledgable on LGB) as its pretty heavy to start with.

Here's one (with the extra water tender car) from my club meeting yesterday  -

 

 

 

The financial status of LGB is still up in the air. LGB of America will most likely spin off into a seperate entity. There are hundreds of pages of forum threads on the topic (if you care to read them, I don't). What that means as far as product availability is still unclear.

-Brian 

[cabbage]

If you are happy that this is possible could I suggest you build some form of battery electric locomotive. Looking at the type of distance that it would have to travel and the gradient that it would have to sustain -then could I recommend the Kitson Meyer type of locomotive?

You could suspend the Sealed Lead Acid battery between the two bogies (in the firebox) thus lowering the COG and improving your tractive effort.

Don't be afraid to ask how to build the locomotive you require. Several of us here are obsessed with scratch building and are always looking for new converts!!!

regards

ralph

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sheila.capella/cabbage/articulated.html

[cacole]

Regardless of whether you use stainless steel or brass rail, I would seriously consider battery power and radio control instead of any form of track power in a salt-water, beach-front climate.  With track power, you're probably going to spend the majority of your time cleaning rail instead of actually running a train.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice.

Questions:

1. Even if I use Hillman clamps at every joint, and stainless steel track, will I still be spending more time cleaning than using?

2. Are there no off-the shelf locos already set up for battery power?

3. Will not carting around batteries in a separate bogey reduce my pulling power, as I assume they cannot be placed in the loco (if they could be placed there, it would increase traction I guess).?

[altterrain]

How much time that will spent track cleaning is hard to say. Is the windshield of your car covered with sea foam every night? Big locomotives with many track pick ups are far more forgiving of dirty track than small locos.

AristoCraft is the closest to having out of the box RC ready locomotives. They are developing a line of plug and play components towards this end. There are a number of well known guys who do installations of RCS, Airwire and other systems. Trailer cars with a battery/RC set up do add weight to the train but not a huge amount (far less than a bottle of wine). The heaviest weight is the battery which is the equivalent to a 18 volt drill battery. New Lithium ion batteries are even lighter.

 -Brian

[cabbage]

To be honest with you -for the type of use that you are going to give this loco then the answer
HAS to be :

Q1 Yes.
Q2 No.
Q3 The tractive effort of your loco would be vastly increased if you could place you batteries between your power bogies -but if you have to drag them it does cut down on the tractive effort available.

I think you will have to build it.

This is not a hard operation, IP Engineering sell 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 bogie kits -they take about 45 minutes to put together, (I have bought quite a few of them!). A length of ply edged with 25mm square with two bolts through it into the pivot points on the bogies, use a washer to protect the ply, screw a speed controller to the framed ply. A 6V SLA plonked on the centre section to a fuse and a DPDT switch.

And that really is all there is to it!!!

This crude sounding affair is the basis of 16 of my 18 locomotives...

Click the HomePage icon and have a look around the section marked "Kitchen Sink Engineering". Don't be afraid to ask questions, and have fun!!!

regards

ralph

[FJ and G]

my train hauls fresh produce for the hound

 

 

[Tom The Brat]

Whew.. For a moment there, I thought it sayd, "Produce from the dog."

[piercedan]

LGB did sell a car with inserts for carrying 2 soda/beer cans.

[markperr]

Sounds like a job for a dozen or so gondolas.  I've heard of many folks who have used their GR's for actual freight operations.  Everythinng from delivering beer to the deck to pulling to transporting vegetables from the garden.  I say "go for it".  It'll make quite the conversation starter.

 Mark

[markperr]

Sounds like a job for a dozen or so gondolas.  I've heard of many folks who have used their GR's for actual freight operations.  Everythinng from delivering beer to the deck to pulling to transporting vegetables from the garden.  I say "go for it".  It'll make quite the conversation starter.

Mark

[ttrigg]

Michael:

First of all:


Second:
The only crazy ideas are those that are discarded without proper investigation.  I would say your idea is very doable.  I would second Brian's comments of stainless steel track and battery power due to your environment.  In that case your "track maintenance" should be very minimal, keep the leaves and large debris off the tracks, (in your case that might mean sea weed).

Third:
We love to see pictures of the progress made by others.  There is a wealth of knowledge available from the more "senior members" of this forum, and they all are willing share their expertise and experience.

In my case, I plan to have my trains help deliver the grape harvest this year.

[Beach Bill]

As you already know, this is a harsh environment for anything outdoors.  It's not just the salt air and wind, but also the sun.  I'm not directly on the beach, but it is still all sand here a couple blocks off the ocean in South Carolina.  I have gone with Sunset Valley Code 250 Nickle Silver, Mainline Enterprise (now distributed through SplitJaw) "PVC" roadbed, and on-board battery power installed by Remote Control Systems of New England.  These aren't cheap solutions, but I didn't want to be out re-aligning track after every "tropical" rain, and I similarly didn't want to be running electric outdoors if I didn't need to.

I don't think you'll have much trouble adapting some flat cars and gondolas to handle "refreshments".

Bill

[John Busby]

Hi Michael

I agree with the big powerful locomotive idea

You will need flat tops for wine bottles with custom made bottle cradles you should be able to make the cradles from PVC pipe and end caps.

gondolas for salt sauce etc wine glasses cans of cool drink LGB do a nice 4w lidded wagon suitable for beer nuts etc

You will need wider than normal clearances.

You can forget the beach you will be to busy finding excuses to run the gourmet express

regards John

PS keep the kitchen cars separate from the inevitable I want to play trains ones