TheRailwire
General Discussion => Layout Engineering Reports => Topic started by: eric220 on December 15, 2020, 02:57:05 PM
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I have developed a new addiction. I had planned for a long time to build a garden railroad, but with the purchase of this:
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/18/1684-200620042629.jpeg)
a few months ago, things got real. I went out to the back yard and took careful measurements of my available space, which looks like this:
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/21/1684_15_12_20_2_12_26_2.jpeg)
And I came up with this:
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/21/1684_15_12_20_2_12_12_2.jpeg)
Careful measurements my :ashat:... :facepalm:
I was a little disappointed with the wobbly, bumpy perimeter that is supposed to be a smoothly flowing footpath. After burning several hours taking measurements, I was burned out and had no energy to try again. While I was discussing the situation with the Bureau of Land Management (my lovely bride), we agreed that the whole area is really due for re-landscaping. It's something we've talked about on and off since we moved into this house. Designing a railroad that could be worked into the plan seemed to be the best option. Unfortunately, that skyrocketed the scope and cost of the project, so onto the back burner it went.
Fast forward to last week. On a whim, I looked up AristoCraft C-16's (to turn into DSP&P #51, better known as DL&G 191) on that auction site, and I found a REALLY good deal. I snapped it up, put an LGB congdon stack on it, and put it under the Christmas tree. It's been dutifully hauling the Christmas Tree Train ever since. Now my motivation and energy for the garden railroad is up again! This is not going to happen next week, or next month, but with any luck it will get under way some time next year. I need to have a plan in place when we start discussing landscaping (I'm hoping that the landscapers can build the sub-roadbed as part of the deal) so it is time to come up with a plan. I decided that the "measured" drawing I made is good enough, so I started playing around.
Here's what's in the drawing (the grid is 12" squares with 24" squares emphasized):
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/21/1684-151220141133.jpeg)
The green objects are plants, which are to one degree or another considered removable.
The larger gray objects are rocks, which are definitely removable or repositionable.
The border is a fence line on the left and top, and a concrete pathway around the inside. The pathway is no-go space for planning purposes.
You will also notice a deck and a reference to an "available entrance to the garage." The Bureau of Land Management has released additional real estate for the railroad! The track will now run down the edge of the deck, around the end, down the fence line, and bridge over a pathway to punch through a wall of the garage, where the staging tracks will be built. This was always in the back of my head as a possible expansion at some point, but it's become an integral part of the plan now. I want to be able to fire this thing up and run it with minimal setup and teardown.
On to design criteria:
1. The prototype is the Denver, South Park, and Pacific railroad in 1884.
- The high line to Leadville is complete, and the Keystone Branch is newly open.
- The Cooke moguls (LGB) and Baldwin consolidations (AristoCraft) are brand new on property.
- Although Jay Gould and the Union Pacific have been in control of the railroad for four years, the massive renumbering and reorganization (and maintenance shutdown) of 1885 hasn't happened yet.
2. 5' radius curves where possible, 4' minimum (that's the minimum radius of the Mason Bogie)
3. 2' section minimum to break up and S curves.
4. There should be a path through the layout that minimizes taking diverging routes on turnouts, and where necessary, those turnouts should be gentle (no LGB R1's).
5. I like Llagas Creek's (http://"https://llagascreekrailways.com") aluminum track, so to start off with planning will assume its use. #4, #6, #10 turnouts available, as are #4 and #6 wye's.
6. The general design will roundy-round with minimal or no switching, with a branch off to staging.
- The link and pin couplers make switching monstrously annoying, but not impossible.
- The layout will be front and center of our outdoor entertaining area, so I want to be able to fire up a train and just let it run.
7. Locomotives will be battery powered.
8. Entire trains must be able to be turned at all ends.
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Awwwwwwwwwwwww sh!t, yo, I've been waiting for this thread since you bought that Bogie! Instant favorite! :ashat:
Can't wait, man. I'm jealous... I miss my backyard RGS, but your climate will be a LOT friendlier toward your right-of-way than the Colorado Front Range was to mine.
To be clear, when you say 5' radius, you do mean radius, right? For some reason in G scale people use diameter for curvature a lot. Like on my RGS I had 8' diameter, so 4' radius.
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I did some playing around and came up with this as a first draft:
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/21/1684-151220141300.jpeg)
The cut trough the bush on the left is an available path that could be built now. That got me thinking that a little scouting to clarify what is and is not an available path on my "measured" drawing might be in order. That yielded this:
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/21/1684-151220141325.jpeg)
Given that that's my working layer at the moment, it also shows the dimensions of various curves and turnouts. You may notice the red curve in the wye. That has a radius of 2.5', which violates my minimum. That's OK, as the Aristo and LGB locomotives can take that no problem. It just means that the Mason Bogie won't be able to take that turn. Given that running the Bogie will be an event, I don't mind having to run it back and forth from staging.
My original plan, hatched many years ago, had been to replicate the tracks at Keystone. Something like this (the dashed lines are my additions onto the prototype track arrangement):
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/21/1684-151220151052.jpeg)
I still like it, and it vaguely inspired the wye area on the track plans above, but it doesn't make sense in the current plan. This was the end of the branch. The tracks never went any further. I'm OK with the fake turnaround, but I can't call this the Keystone branch as I'd originally intended with the wye in the middle of the mainline.
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Awwwwwwwwwwwww sh!t, yo, I've been waiting for this thread since you bought that Bogie! Instant favorite! :ashat:
Can't wait, man. I'm jealous... I miss my backyard RGS, but your climate will be a LOT friendlier toward your right-of-way than the Colorado Front Range was to mine.
To be clear, when you say 5' radius, you do mean radius, right? For some reason in G scale people use diameter for curvature a lot. Like on my RGS I had 8' diameter, so 4' radius.
Yes, 5' radius, 10' diameter. 4' radius, 8' diameter minimum.
I also realized I forgot to talk about operations. The thought is to have three trains staged. It was going to be two, a passenger and a freight, until I counted up the freight cars that I have, did a few measurements, and realized that I've already got enough for two freight trains. :facepalm: Oh well, guess I need one more locomotive! (The Mason Bogie is NOT going to live in the garage.) On a side note, if I buy two LGB moguls, my G and Nn3 fleets will be exactly the same! I already planned to do C&S 31 (DSP&P 51) in Nn3, so maybe my LGB moguls will need to be renumbered DSP&P 40 and 69, which later became C&S 5 and 6 to match my Nn3 models.
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I like the second one better because it keeps the trains more near the front edge, assuming that is adjacent to the path.
Easier for maintenance of both trains and plants.
It'd be a shame to build all that and only see trains 20% of the time.
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I like the second one better because it keeps the trains more near the front edge, assuming that is adjacent to the path.
Easier for maintenance of both trains and plants.
It'd be a shame to build all that and only see trains 20% of the time.
That was one of the points of doing that exercise. I'm still a bit torn on that. The trains really aren't hidden all that much under the first plan; mostly just when they go behind those big, boxy bushes. They would actually be quite visible in that back corner turning behind the redwood tree. The thing I like about that is it forces a more from-the-side perspective, instead of the top-down that you would get sitting on the benches as the train runs right under you. I played around a little with going behind the bush on the left, but then in front of the bush on the right. I have an idea... Stand by.
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You need some sort of big trestle.
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I'm salty that G scale turnouts are less than O scale ones.
But other than that... F YEAH!!
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You need some sort of big trestle.
Ummm, duh! :D I originally thought I was going to need a huge, Devil's Gate High Bridge affair to make the turn at the upper right. I've only got about one foot of flat space behind the deck, another foot of gentle slope (the light gray area), and then a STEEP drop off. Turns out I don't need that, but I will need something somewhere. If nothing else, I'm thinking a nice through-truss for the lift bridge that will cross the pathway to the portal into the garage. That will be about a foot off the ground.
Here's the thought I had for the upper left:
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/21/1684-151220154503.jpeg)
Yeah, I know, it's very model-railroady. I actually think it evokes something of the twisty-windy trackage that was the DSP&P high line. The actual Keystone branch had a 3% ruling grade, which I will NOT be replicating.
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@Chris333 ,
The DSP&P had a few trestles but none of them as massive or as iconic as the ones we associate with the Rio Grande Southern.
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I'm just sayin' :D
Also about the whole outdoor railroad. What is the height the track would be off the ground? I mean you wouldn't want to be looking down at the trains. So either lift the trains up or create a sunken walkway about 3' wide along the "layout".
Just ideas I know moving real ground is harder than carving foam.
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Highly RC/recommend battery powered operation. A friend made the switch and hasn't looked back.
-Dave
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I'm just sayin' :D
Also about the whole outdoor railroad. What is the height the track would be off the ground? I mean you wouldn't want to be looking down at the trains. So either lift the trains up or create a sunken walkway about 3' wide along the "layout".
Just ideas I know moving real ground is harder than carving foam.
There's enough undulation around that I should be able to find a spot or two for bridges. They'll likely be metal, and probably more consistent with stream crossings than something like what @Dave V did for Windy Point.
Neither raising the trains up of the ground nor digging down is an option. Bureau of Land Management would not go for that. I've got access to more right of way than I could have hoped, so I'm not going to push my luck.
Highly RC/recommend battery powered operation. A friend made the switch and hasn't looked back.
-Dave
My dad does battery operation too. He uses swappable battery packs, and that works very well for him. His layout is pretty modest, and a single pack gives plenty of loops and toot-toots to entertain the grandkids. I don't know what the state of battery/charging technology is, but I'd really like to set it up so that the batteries charge through the rails. I'm not talking about charging while rolling; the idea would be to electrify the staging yard as the primary charging location, and maybe a couple of sidings for top-offs. Like I mentioned before, removing as many barriers and steps as possible between the thought, "I want to run some trains," and having trains moving down the tracks is a priority.
In other news, I'm tossing the loop around the tree. I don't know why, but I'm having a really hard time with scale. Everything is just so much smaller when I go out there. It may be partly that I'm using 4" wide lines to actually show where the tracks will go, as opposed to the thin centerlines that I was using for my N scale work. I also didn't like the way the loop compromised the aesthetic. This is obviously not going to be hyper realistic; it's going to be a model railroad running through a garden. Still, I want to stick to the feel of the DSP&P as much as I can: a single windy mainline ducking around hills and mountains punctuated by wyes, small yards, and spurs.
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I'd encourage you to partially bury some pressure treated lumber that you can miter for your turns just to give a solid footing for the track and it can be screwed to.
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I'd encourage you to partially bury some pressure treated lumber that you can miter for your turns just to give a solid footing for the track and it can be screwed to.
There's going to be some form of substantial sub roadbed. I'm hoping that I can get that done as part of the landscaping. Then I have a nice solid surface that I can come back and secure track on.
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Good grief I think I'm on to something!
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/21/1684-151220212612.jpeg)
Point to point (wye to wye) operation with a continuous running option. I'm thrilled that I was able to work in the wye at Keystone with geometry that the Mason Bogie can handle, so I can run it point to point! The continuous run is even prototypical, as the DSP&P basically just ran shuttle trains between Keystone and Dickey. After a few years it got downgraded to a mixed a few times a week. After the wye was removed at Keystone, there were no runarounds between Dillon and Keystone, with one facing point spur and one trailing point spur. The local had to hitch the cars bound for/picked up from Keystone to the pilot coupler and run with cars on both ends! Admittedly the team track at Keystone is in the wrong place, but given how distorted the rest of it is, that doesn't bother me. I have the space where the track is to scenic, so there may even be some buildings in store!
I also added the details of the staging yard. There's a metal shelving unit in the garage that's 10 feet long that will support one of the three staging tracks. The door from the garage to the house is at the other end, so that is a hard 10 feet, no negotiating. I also had to adjust the wye that I'm calling Como to allow for the yard ladder. I may have to experiment with the Mason Bogie to see if it will go around a slightly tighter curve. That dead end leg is now 9' 10", and I want the same length on that leg as I've got in staging. Right now one of those two lengths will define the max train length for the layout.
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I played around with Keystone and got a MUCH better design! The tracks are now accurate to the prototype, although flipped, and there’s room for a 1’ x 2’ depot inside the wye, which is also accurate placement. The new design complies with my design criteria, and I checked the clearances in the back yard to make sure that everything would fit. I also had to rebuild Denver, since my program for some reason decided not to save my work. While I was doing that, I realized that there was no point in truncating the staging tracks, since I could easily fit the whole 10 feet. Another testament to the difficulty I’m having mentally translating this to real space.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/21/1684-191220202107.jpeg)
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Question... Do you ever envision a meet out on the line? If so, a passing siding might be in order, allowing more flexible ops. But the cons to that are the obvious additional track expense but also that it would detract a bit from the lonely single-track-in-the-wilderness narrow gauge vibe.
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Question... Do you ever envision a meet out on the line? If so, a passing siding might be in order, allowing more flexible ops. But the cons to that are the obvious additional track expense but also that it would detract a bit from the lonely single-track-in-the-wilderness narrow gauge vibe.
Prototype accuracy! There was no runaround between Dillon and the end of the line at Keystone. Traffic was light enough that there was not really a concern that two trains might meet. That said, the way I’ve designed it the team track at Keystone and the runaround at Dickey are both long enough to hold a whole train. I could have all three trains out at once, with one running and the other two on those sidings.
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Wow! Funny because the RGS is kind of my reference for Colorado narrow gauge and they had dozens of passing sidings along their 162-mile route. But it was built with pre-1893 Silver Crash traffic in mind and for a brief period, saw traffic levels that would have made any Eastern road jealous. Of course by my era a single steam train per district every 3 or 4 days was noteworthy. Only the Goose ran daily.
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If I were modeling Dillon, that would be a different story. Dillon featured a runaround and interchange with the D&RG. Likewise, if I were modeling the mainline High Line or even more so the mainline between Como and Denver, runarounds would be a must. The Keystone branch was built as the other end of the Colorado Central extension from Georgetown to Silver Plume over The Loop. It was mainly a UP-funded bluff to create a short route from Leadville to Denver that put pressure on the D&RG to give in to their demands. There really wasn’t enough traffic east of Dillon to justify the branch’s existence.
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The Christmas season was good to me, even if I was buying stuff for myself. :facepalm: My garden railroad stable has grown.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/22/1684-120121193325.jpeg)
The AristoCraft C-16 in the back currently lettered as #13 is destined to become #51 (later renumbered as #191). I'm also planning to paint it to match the LGB mogul in the middle, currently lettered as #71. This is my newest acquisition, and it is VERY used. So far I had to glue the pilot back on and rip out the broken congdon stack and replace it with a spare. (I also put one of those on #51.) As you can see, there's a handrail stanchion missing, and the tender coupler is broken. Oh well, that's what you get when you get a good price: a project! I'm probably going to renumber #71 as either #40 or #69. I'm planning to acquire another one of these and renumber it to the other one. #40 became C&S #5, and #69 became C&S #6, and C&S #5 and #6 are the two locomotives that I have in Nn3. Of course the AccuCraft #6 in the front is my precious. The only projects on that locomotive are reinstalling some of the cab window glass and installing electronics. Interestingly, you are looking at three different scales here. #6 is 1:20.3, #71 is 1:22.5, and #13 is 1:24. That translates to, respectively, 3' gauge on 45mm track, meter gauge on 45mm track, and 1":2' toy scale. I had thoughts about modifying #13 with an LGB cab and tender to beef it up a little, but I've decided against it. #13 is a Baldwin prototype, #71 is a Cooke prototype, and #6 is a Mason prototype. There was enough variation in narrow gauge railroading that I'm just not going to worry about it.
The other project that I have dug into is turnouts. My January budget was supposed to go toward a Llagas Creek #4 turnout and a couple pieces of "flex" track to test #6 on, but then I got the opportunity to acquire #71, and there goes the budget. Still, I got ahold of harp style switch stands from Ozark Miniatures (http://"https://ozarkminiatures.com") and Phil's Narrow Gauge (http://"http://philsnarrowgauge.com/default.html"). The Ozark stands are closer to the DSP&P prototype, but they are white metal and don't latch. Overall, they're too fragile for actual switch throws; they're more appropriate as cosmetic indicators. The Phil's stand is BEEFY. This thing was designed to throw turnouts.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/22/1684-120121193205.jpeg)
It needs a different target, which is no small task as the round one is cast on there, but it should be easily doable. I'm also playing around with measurements and weighing options for mounting. I want at least some of the turnouts to be spring loaded, at least in one direction, so I can run the layout casually. I have to be able to wye into staging, and the mainline has two turnouts at each turnaround that will want to be sprung. There are some options for linkage, as the Phil's stand has several connection points as well as detents for a three-way switch, so there's a center position for a "half" throw. This is a Llagas Creek turnout of the same type that I'm going to be attaching them to, courtesy of my dad's layout.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/22/1684-120121193240.jpeg)
The throw is 3/8", but we'll get to the nitty gritty of measurements in the next post. This is the look I'm going for, taken at Jefferson Tank on the DSP&P.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/22/1684-120121193127.jpeg)
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You live in a semi arid part of California, so treated lumber is probably okay... but you might be better off with cedar. A bit more expensive, but far more stable, especially in a ground contact horizontal scenario. The southern yellow pine used for treated can be very open grain due to it's rapid growth, which, as the treatment dries tends to make it more suitable for boat ribs than sub roadbed.
When I built my garden layout, I dug a trench about 8" deep, put a couple of inches of pea gravel in the trench, then ran a line of cinder blocks to form the ROW. The pea gravel made it easy to level and provided drainage, and the blocks, once packed back in with soil, provided a good, solid stable base. At key points where I needed to secure the track, I could insert a block of treated 4x4 into the core of the block to catch screws. Everywhere else, the blocks were laid solid side up for the track to lay on. Then I filled everything around the blocks with landscaping stone to create the finished subroadbed.
Once the track was all installed, I used a couple hundred pounds of chicken grit (very finely crushed granite, but still "rocks" and not sand) for the ballast. The initial results were very good.
Sadly in our high humidity/long mud season climate, the weeds were a constant problem, and the project was eventually abandoned and liquidated.
But I can tell you, there's a pretty solid roadbed still in place down there in Cambridge!!
Lee
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As a hardscape contractor I would avoid pea gravel, and stick to the smallest chip or angular stone you can find. We build retaining walls and base everything on 3/4 clear, but 1/2 or less (some have 3/8 around us) would be suitable for the application. Easy to level, tamp, great drainage. Pea gravel here is generally too round for any sort of non decorative use.
Following with interest, love garden railways and would love to build one if I wasn’t so invested in HO and N. A dream of mine is to sell an elaborate hardscape design with water feature to some rail fan to incorporate a garden railway layout.
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@wm3798 I'm liking the idea of ditch/fine gravel/cinder blocks. I priced it out quickly, and buying the blocks one at a time from Home Depot, I could do the whole thing for around $200. Compared to the track, that's a rounding error.
Continuing on the idea of measurements and turnouts from my last post, here are some more thoughts. This is what the harp stand would look like mounted to the stock Llagas Creek headblocks. I made the measurements from the inside of the rail so that I could mock it up with LGB track without having to account for the width of the Llagas Creek track versus the LGB track.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/22/1684-170121122643.jpeg)
That gets a hard NOPE. The swing of the throw arm comes WAY too close to the rolling stock. There is actually a possibility here, but I'll discuss that further down.
My understanding is that these turnouts are basically hand made to order. I could probably get longer headblocks put on. That might look something like this.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/22/1684-170121122716.jpeg)
Much better clearance, and it looks much closer to the prototype photo above. There is also another possibility here. Instead of trying to order custom longer headblocks, I could add them on myself. That opens up the possibility of adding some room for a spring mechanism, thusly.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/22/1684-170121122818.jpeg)
I do need some of the turnouts to be sprung. This seems to be the simplest way to get it done, but I'm open to other ideas. In addition to wanting the spring action for operating sake, a sprung linkage would also allow for a nice, tight throw in both directions by overthrowing the stand a bit. Here are the linkage possibilities.
(https://www.therailwire.net/forum/gallery/22/1684-170121124228.jpeg)
The measurements are accurate there, even if they don't line up perfectly in the photo. The throw does have some play to it, so it actually would be possible to just link up the top hole directly to the throw bar and fudge the 3/8" throw. Still, adding the spring allows for less wiggle. That brings me back to the possibility I mentioned above. The harp stand is a three-position stand. Prototypically, the center detent shouldn't be there for a simple two-way turnout, but there it is. The throw of the longest hole is 3/4" from left to right. That means it's 3/8" side to center, or exactly the right distance to throw the points. I could set it up so that the turnouts use the center position and one side position. The benefits are that setup would fit on the stock headblocks, and the harp stands would more clearly indicate normal (vertical) or reverse (leaning). The drawbacks are that's not how the prototypes worked, there is no "over throw" to be taken up by a spring to ensure a tight throw, and it means modifying the stock headblocks to accommodate a spring. Thoughts?
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As a hardscape contractor I would avoid pea gravel, and stick to the smallest chip or angular stone you can find. We build retaining walls and base everything on 3/4 clear, but 1/2 or less (some have 3/8 around us) would be suitable for the application. Easy to level, tamp, great drainage. Pea gravel here is generally too round for any sort of non decorative use.
Following with interest, love garden railways and would love to build one if I wasn’t so invested in HO and N. A dream of mine is to sell an elaborate hardscape design with water feature to some rail fan to incorporate a garden railway layout.
Now that you mention it, I did use red chip stone for the base. Pea gravel does move around too much.
Lee