Further Developments on Grant's Railroad

Further Developments on Grant's Railroad

Grant has sent us some more images and details of his most recent developments on his railroad.  Below is the story in his own words.

2021 Garden Railroad Rebuild

The resurrection of my garden railroad required one further repair of the original trackage before we can move onto building the new section.

While repairing the section of the south loop that was adjacent to the vegetable garden we discovered the section by the patio also required some TLC. It appears the deteriorating sub road bed had resulted in some uneven trackage which was causing the cars to derail. Since the track alignment was good, the task was a little simpler here focusing on replacing the wooden sub road bed.

To re-visit Grant's first posting on these developments, copy and paste the link below into your browser.

https://gardenrailroadottawa.blogspot.com/2021/05/developments-on-grants-railroad.html

The track to be repaired ran counter clockwise from the patio steps to the trestle. In fact the size/shape of the lower patio was driven by the railroad – talk about having your priorities in the right place.

A test train (loco) was run across the problem trackage to verify the nature of the problem thus identifying the required repair work. The track itself (Micro Engineering aluminum) was fine, but the road bed underneath had developed some undulations which were telegraphed up into the track.

Since the track alignment was just fine, I used it as a template as I cut the new roadbed sections. These sections were laid on top as I made my way around the curve.

The roadbed sections were joined together with additional wood splices that were screwed in place. Once again all of this assembly was done on top of the existing road bed thus ensuring perfect alignment. Due to the escalating price of lumber this year, I chose to go with 1 x6 PT deck boards instead of 2 by material. So far it has been working out OK.

At this point we were ready to remove the track and extract the old road bed. All of this went to the end of the driveway on garbage day.

The old stone dust was now removed and a nice clean trench was cleared out for the new road bed.

The new road bed was then dropped in place and the stone dust carefully packed around as the road bed was checked for level.

Just to make sure the stone dust was firmly in place, I hit it with the garden hose.

The rail road track was then re-installed. For some strange reason, it ended up being two inches longer so the excess was cut off. I guess it was better to be too long than too short!

Here the rebuilt road bed is in place. Track screwed down and trains are able to return to service.

Next update will be regarding  the new northern loop which is a whole new piece to the railroad. (Grant)

Thanks, Grant, for sharing more great pics of your recent developments.  We look forward to your next installment!

All the best, Mike Hamer, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada