Last
Saturday was a wonderful day here in Michigan. It made it up to 70
degrees and I made full use of the day.
Preparation had really started the Monday before when I ordered a little
over 100 feet of Aristo-Craft Aluminum track from San-Val. As luck would
have it, when I arrived home on Friday, the track was sitting on the door step
waiting to be installed. I then continued the preparation when I tried
to get some brick pavers sand from the local yard supply. It turned out
that they don't carry that product anymore. I was bumming. So I
headed out to the local Home Depot and picked up 20 - 50 pound bags of Brick
Pavers Base. The stage was set for the dawn of a new railway! Sounds ominous,
doesn't it?
After a good breakfast every yard tool that I owned made an appearance in
the yard!
I started by assembling 10-15 feet of track on the ground starting from my
tunnel. Using a stick, I traced the outline of the track into the
dirt. I then took some 2 foot stakes and drove them into the ground
about 1 foot deep along the edge of my outline, spacing them just under 4 feet
apart. I picked 4 foot because I was using a 4 foot level to help me get
the grade right. I placed the level just in the entrance of my tunnel
and held it against the first stake. I adjusted the Level until it was
level and then drew a line on the stake using the bottom of the Level as a
guide. The maximum grade I wanted on my layout was 3% but I wanted the
grade to stay as low as possible. A 3% grade over a distance of 4 feet
meant that I could lower or raise the road bed line on my stake by 1 1/2
inches. Since my tunnel is at the high point of the layout, I marked a
line 1 1/2 inches below the level mark on the stake. This meant that my
road bed had to be at least up to that mark to stay at or under a 3% grade.
I'm sure some people are saying, "What the *$%#$^% did he just
say!" Hopefully this picture will help a little.
To get the grade mark on the next stake, I put a spring clamp on the stake
at the road bed line. This gave me a support to hold my Level at the
road bed line while I marked the next stake level line. Then I could
adjust that stakes line by up to 1 1/2 inches as needed to bring me to the
main level of the layout.
It's kind of hard to explain but it worked pretty good for me.
Once
I had the first section marked off, I broke out the tools and started digging
my trenches for the road bed. The depth of the trench depended on the
road bed line on my stakes. I wanted 4-5 inches of bed material so if
the road bed line was 1 inch above the ground, I dug my trench 3 inches
deep. To make it easier to get the depth right, take a marker or a
grease pencil and draw a line on your shovel 4 inches up from the end.
Then you can easily tell how deep you are.
I then cut weed block material into strips about 5 inches wide and lined
the bottom of the trench. The paver base packs down quite a bit.
So I filled the trench about 3/4 full then walked on the base material to pack
it in. Then top that off with more base material and pack again.
Keep adding and packing the base until you are at the right height. I
used the level, laid along the road bed, to show me any low spots and to
double check the grade.
Once that first section was ready, I placed my track down in the exact
location it would end up. Then I repeated the whole process again:
put together another section starting from the end of your last section, trace
the outline in the dirt, place your stakes, mark your grade and dig away.
10 hours later, with a 1/2 hour for lunch, I was within 15 feet of
completion of my first 70 foot loop. It was 7pm by the time I started
picking up the tools and my &$&$%&^ was dragging all over that
yard. I had one problem though, I was out of paver base. So I
washed the dirt from my face, grabbed a bite of dinner and headed back to Home
Depot for another 10 bags.
Man, I slept like a rock that night and on Sunday I felt like a rock!
I would note that I did have to cut some of the track to fit the layout as
I went. I purchased 70 feet of straight track in 5 foot lengths and 36
feet of track in 10 foot diameter curves. The aluminum cut easily with a
hack saw. Make sure to use a fine file to clean up the ends of any cut
track so that it goes together easily.
Sunday turned out to be a cold and windy day. A real let down from
the previous day. It didn't help that I could hardly stand up from being
so stiff. I was anxious to finish so none of this stopped me.
I
unloaded all the paver base, got the tools out again and finished the last
section leading back to the tunnel. Once the track was all in place I
went back over the track and poured more base material over the rails.
Using my hands and a 2 inch paint brush, I worked my way around making sure
that the sandy base material filled in between the rails. I used the
brush to clean out some of the material that would stick to the inside of the
rail and possible effect the trains running. This last step took me
about 1 hour but I was done, happy to look over my new railway empire and
ready to run my first train.
The
temperature was about 58 when I finished. It was a bit cold for the
butane in my live steam engine but I had to try. I brought out Ruby and
my steam supplies and fired up the boiler. It took a while to get the
steam up but when Ruby pulled away with it's R/C setup in hand I was very
pleased. Ruby ran all around the layout with no problems. The
steam showing up nicely on the cool day.
The DC&H Empire had begun!
I did notice some low spots as the loco ran around the track and I will add
a little base material to those areas when the sun shines again. Ruby
made a second uneventful run around the DC&H Railway then I quickly
cleaned everything up on my way to the couch!
Johnny F
