Barry's Deck and Storage Renewal Project

 Barry Gets a New Deck and Enhanced Storage Abilities

Barry sent me the following e-mail this weekend.  It would appear that there have been some highly innovative changes at his place that will enhance Barry's and our railroad experience.

Hi Mike,  After waiting until October for our new decking and railings (that were originally promised for June), I was finally able to begin my construction of a weatherproof enclosure under the upper and middle decks.

  When the sales rep had told me that the new decking, unlike composite deck boards, would be completely waterproof, I was sold immediately.  

Another selling point was that they would leave the old deck boards in place, and put a plywood sub-floor underneath the vinyl decking.  You can imagine how much effort and/or money I saved doing it that way. 

 

PS:  The beautiful Iris was photographed on Oct 23rd, as I was beginning the project.  By then, frosts had pretty well decimated our flower beds.  The other pictures were taken the same day. Barry.

Remember, you can enlarge the images by clicking on them and return to the default page by clicking outside them.

In the above image we see the "Duradeck" deck covering and new aluminum railings.

Barry continued..."I  hope this way of sending you these pics works for you.  They were saved from my Android tablet onto my desktop computer as JPG files, hopefully drastically reducing the file size, and then dragged onto this message.  There are three more messages to follow, using the same method."  

They arrived perfectly - Mike.

We see above the new "Duradek" deck covering with the new aluminum railings near the dinner table up top.  

Barry went on to write..."Following messages will show pictures of the project to enclose the deck, with its now-weatherproof covering.  Everything except the existing rail tracks on the ground underneath had to be dismantled, and new racks against the wall for elevated railcar storage were constructed.  The old racks that housed the drawers for railcars were completely dismantled, and moved forward, using the same lumber."

Up top we are looking out over the stairwell to the east leading down to the patio at ground level.

More from Barry..."Putting the locomotive storage (summer) or buildings storage (winter) in the new enclosure meant I could surplus the horizontal shed that used to house them before.  I also surplused two deck boxes that used to house tools and parts, which are also now stored in the racks inside the front of the enclosure."

Above you can see, the snap-dragons and zinnias are still hanging in there at the time, and I couldn't resist taking one more picture of them.

"Hi again Mike,  These pictures  were also taken on October 23rd, as I was finally underway with my project to enclose the upper and middle decks, to protect everything underneath from the elements."

"Throughout, you will see that I have re-used as many materials as possible, even finally using boards that I had scavenged up to 50 years ago, since our first house in Kitimat, BC, all the way to our last, in Orleans."

For the above image, my main objective was to completely enclose everything, to protect against not only the elements all year, but also keep "critters," such as cats, gophers and skunks out.  There were so many places to deal with, with all the stairs, angles, and different elevations to deal with.

For starters, I had to frame up every opening to receive either a covering panel or door.  It was fun, because virtually no existing post or rafter was plumb or level.  Because I was in a race against the oncoming winter weather, I chose removable panels.  Next spring, some will be replaced with hinged and latched doors.  Those panels are at the ready beside in this picture, which is showing the portal at the east end.  The existing drawers were retained.

It took a few weeks to rebuild the rail car storage area underneath.  (See above.)  A sixth track was added on the bottom level, and an upper level constructed for the remaining cars that used to be stored in the drawers underneath at the front.  For nine years, I had to battle the persistent water from getting at them.

To save money (lots of it!) on brass rails, I used old fence boards (from previous fences mostly), spaced precisely to accommodate the wheel gauge of the cars.  At the time of these pictures, I did not have a light fixture inside, so you can't see that each of the upper rows can hold 8 or 9 cars.  A fourth row can hold my 4 Bachmann DRG  passenger cars.

The above photograph shows how all of the racks below deck level had to be moved forward 2 feet, since they used to be inset underneath the 2' deck widening four years ago.

Check out the above image...You might appreciate how many times I banged my head leaning under there to pull out cars, etc.  Of course, before moving everything off the old racks, I had to build temporary racks on the back wall while the reconstruction proceeded. 

 Those temporary racks were then disassembled again to permit building the elevated storage "tracks' for the displaced cars.  Often, the same boards (and screws) were used three times in just over a month!

"Hi again, Mike,  Having built an elevated storage rack for rail cars, I had to figure out how to easily take them out and return them to and from an operating session."

This view (above) is looking through the west portal to the inner corridor, behind the buildings and other storage shelves.  It is bright, because there is now a light fixture over the rail car storage rack.

On the left, you can see a stack of the old drawers retained from earlier days.  They are there, right inside, for a reason which will become apparent in the next few pictures.

Above, you can see my "transfer table" that is stored just inside the door, which will be pulled out and placed in front, ready to accept a drawer/tray for carrying the rail cars to their starting point.

Now, the transfer table is now in place, held there by gravity, ready for a tray to be placed on it.

In the above shot, we see the cars to be lifted are pulled to the edge, ready to be placed in the tray.  An interesting thing about "Yamaha Piano" is that this piece of mahogany was part of the shipping case that my new Yamaha baby grand piano arrived in Scarborough in the late seventies.  That piano is now in our church in Orleans.

Here, some cars are ready to be carried over to Quinte West and Belleville.  The next batch(es) can then be taken the same way in more of the trays.

Before, or after, the elevated cars are taken away if/as required, the ones can be driven out on the tracks below.

The transfer table can be stored as before, until the operating session is ended, and the process reversed.

This is the last set, Mike.  The project was completed two days ago, just in time for our first small snowfall, but more importantly, our first day with a high temperature below zero.

This first picture (above) shows the lumber storage rack under the middle deck.  The white you see under the steps is actually clear plastic sheeting to keep water off that drips between the deck boards of the steps.  I didn't have time to neatly arrange things, but they might even stay until spring now.

Here you can see the sheeting under the steps on the other side, where the garden tools are now stored.

The 110 rail cars are all safely stored now for the winter.

Making use of the storage cupboards at the west end.

The cover panels are ready to close everything up.

The west end covers are on as we see above.

One of the access portals at the end of the stairs.

The east end covers are up.

And, finally, a general view of the finished project, viewed from the lower deck.

A great big note of "Thanks" to Barry for taking the time to document these fine developments on his railroad.  We look forward to seeing the changes "in person" next season!

Have a wonderful day and stay safe!

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