Stew's Garden Scale Railroad Empire

The Third Incarnation Of Our Model Railroad Empire

I'm not having much fun with this... Yet

We've come a long way from our garden scale "empire" that started on the pool deck of our house in Wekiva. We've yet to run a single train here in Mount Dora though. If you've been following along, you'll know we had to dismantle what we had already put together here. And that it took more than a year after moving here before we even had that much started, just to have to dismantle it. The good news is it helped us to come up with a better arrangement, at least it seems that way so far. It allowed me to step back from it, so to speak, and better assess the way things worked. It allowed us to better fit the layout to the yard, to leave room for the dogs to play, to run the track around behind the shed and still have plenty of room to get to the fence if necessary.

As we "remade" the backyard, we added raised beds for plants, a few at a time. We added a paver patio by the garage, and a walkway there from the back "porch", and finally sod. We just couldn't seem to get away from that dirt, and that was the problem. At long last the dirt is covered! We've been working toward this goal for two years now, and now that we've realized it, are busy making it our own. We even added a sunsetter awning to shade the patio! Eventually another raised bed along the edge of the patio. Little by little we made it a place to enjoy.

Starting Over...

(September 2016)
Shortly after getting the backyard sodded and squared away, Ann and Nick found some garden scale trains at our local flea market, and "dragged" me there to look at them... I'm joking. I had not seen anything model train related for years and had stopped going. How many times can you look at pretty much the same "junk" and not think to yourself that your time would be better spent elsewhere? In my case, my time had been dedicated to the bathroom remodel and backyard remake, at least on the weekends when the flea market was open. So I'm excited to go check out the trains and curious as to what I'll find.

Turns out they're Bachmann "Big Haulers" like the other B&O set we already have. It's actually three different sets, but they wanted too much for each of them separately, so I asked how much for the lot? That seemed to stir some activity and messaging with the seller. I ended up taking the whole kit and kaboodle for around $400, including throwing in a truss bridge I really wasn't interested in for free. We carefully squirreled away everything in the trunk of the car and headed home with our score.

All three engines are "ten wheelers", 4-6-0s, and one of them is exactly like Ann's engine I got her for Christmas. The other two are identical Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (ATSF), at least, they used to be. One was missing the the colored inserts on most of the pilot truck wheels and the other its bell. Not having a layout, or even a loop of track to test them out with, I did the next best thing and grabbed a three foot section of track, a power pack, and some jumpers. Let see what they can do! All three run! Well, if I lost my motivation, I certainly have it back now...

Needless to say, the yard has undergone some major changes, both before and after getting the railroad in place. You can read all about those transformations too, but before I get too much further from the subject, I'll pick up where I left off from last time. After disassembling the railbed stringers, they just sat out in the elements, moved from place to place as they once again got in the way of something else going on. While they still weren't in bad shape, they would need to be "reworked" in order to be usefull again. The loops will still be about the same place as list time, but they will turn back on themselves and return rather than just being half circles. At least the upper loop will.

Before any of this can happen, I'll need to break down those stringers into their constituent parts and rebuild them from scratch to fit the new plan. Being the perfectionist I am, I knew I would have to create a new template that allowed for interchange of parts and held things together in a more rigid and flexible fashion than my hurried first attempt. I tried to do too much with the original, asking it to do two sizes of curves, and it did neither well. For the new one, I started with a piece of ¾" plywood big enough to fit both templates, independent of one another. I used the free "SketchUp" software from Google to lay out the template before I even made one cut.

Then I painstakingly drew out the position of all the blocks on the plywood, as well as the paths of the stringer slats, right down to where the spacer blocks should be placed when screwing the stringers together! With this approach, I was able to use much more substantial fasteners than the first attempt too, greatly enhancing the strength and stability. This template also allowed more than half of the stringer to be completed at once, and accounted for shifting the partially completed structure to finish the remaining portion without having to modify the template, unlike the first attempt.

Another thing I did differently this time around was to mark the stringer slats where they would need cut to allow for an "interchangeable parts" approach. So even though each slat starts out a quarter inch thick by an inch and a half wide by eight feet long, I can place them in the template to fit the curved shape they will eventually assume, then mark them to overlap by only 8" after cutting. Once cut, they are easily placed back together and assembled. I had originally tried various thicknesses of slats, starting with one ¾" chunk then two 3⁄8" chunks, but they all wanted to crack before attaining the desired curvature. But three ¼" slats work well, even for the most narrow curves I have, 10' diameter.

This template only handles the 14' and 20' diameter curves, but that's all I'm concerned with at this point anyway. It even handles the "transition curves" from 20' diameter to 14' diameter, simply by constructing one end using the 20' part of the template and the other using the 14' part. Fortunately, each section of 20' diameter track is roughly 4' long, or half the length of a stringer. Very convenient! I soon have the pieces I need assembled. I left a piece of PVC pipe in place at the center of the original loops and it survived the tree removal and sod and everything else that happened over the course of the back yard's transformation!

Armed with that as the starting point for the center of the lopp, a tape measure and the 1¼" PVC pipe "posts", I begin to layout the upper loop and pound the posts in one by one. Before long, I'm attaching each stringer section to the newly planted posts. When I designed the template, I designed around the outer diameter of the PVC pipe, about 1 5⁄8", and cut blocks that wide to space the two sides apart. It makes for a convenient "slip fit" over the posts. A quick clamp provides support, if need be, while levelling them for attachment using deck screws. This time, the loop continues for about 5⁄8 of a circle before finally straightening out, roughly 45° from the starting tangent. The bridge will go here. At the other end of the bridge is another 1⁄8 circle to bring the track parallel to the starting tangent.

It's been over a year since having to take everything apart just to get back to this point and I still can't run trains! Eventually I'll add more tangent (straight) track parallel along the side fence toward the back fence. From there it will curve to parallel the back fence. When it reaches the other fence, it will make a half circle behind the shed, ending parallel to the back of the garage. It's running downhill at a 1% slope the entire way and should reach ground level by the time it reaches back to the other fence. That's the plan anyway. I put together a tangent section, but even though the slats are "straight", and I thought I fastened everythng together straight, it isn't very straight? Looks like I'll need another template just for straight sections.

(October 2016)
Our niece and her family stopped by to visit while they were down here at Disney. Her son Myles had fun playing with the flea market find engine and some cars. I even connected up a power pack so he could run them back and forth, but he soon grew bored with the whole idea of not having at least a loop of track to run it all the way around. I was just as disappointed as him that we still couldn't run trains. I decided I'd had enough. It's time to get at least a simple loop finished. I constructed the templates I'd need, both for tangent and the 10' diameter curves I'd need for going behind the shed and back. I ripped 2x4 after 2x4 into stringer slats. As I emptied the bin of spacer blocks, I'd cut enough more to refill it, and kept going.

I installed the two runs that parallel the fence first, starting with a stringer and post on one side, then the other, laying out track as I went. When I reached the point where I had to curve around to parallel the back fence, I laid out the center of the curves and placed the posts. I should mention that I was slowly sloping downhill at this point. Half an inch over the run run of the four foot level gave an approximate 1% slope I was looking for. I'd set a chunk of the scale 12"x12" (actual ½"x½") across the rails and set the level down on it and the rail at the other end. When it read level, it was sloping just about right, 1 in 96 anyway, and the stringer could be attached to the posts (as well as the previous stringer).

By making them "interchangeable", I definitely cut the time it took to put things together, with only a small increase in "waste" pieces that needed cut off. And with the straight sections, there was no waste because nothing needed cut off. That corner was giving me fits though. The curved stringers didn't seem to want to fit the posts, and the curved track didn't seem to want to fit the stringers. I eventually managed to get that much finished, but part of the problem was trying to match the straight sections to those curves and the curves that would wrap around behind the shed. I couldn't really be sure where one would go with the other.

I needed to make another template, just for the 10' diameter sections this time, but that will take time to sketch out and build. I really needed to mock up the 10' diameter curves to ensure the shed would not interfere. The other difficulty is how to get the two 10' curves to be concentric without interferring with each other. I'm not so worried about what it will look like, since most of those 10' curves won't be seen, pretty much hidden by the shed. But I have to put that on hold for now...

Another Delay...

(November 2016)
As I am pulling out the boxes of track from beneath the bench in the garage, I'm finding they are wet. That's not good. Where is it coming from? My first thought is the window air conditioner is leaking condensation all down the wall and saturating anything in contact with it. Nope. Looks like it's the rotted bottom five courses of shiplap siding along the back of the garage. Great. I didn't want to have to do that now, but I guess now I have no choice. I have to get the new siding oiled and primed at the very least. I start by moving everything away from the garage and removing the trim pieces. All except the one on the side of the garage the fence is mounted to. The one I'm having a hard time getting to since the neighbor parks his trailer there when not in use.

Needless to say, it's another delay in progress on the railroad, but a necessary one. I take the time to replace those boards and the bad spots along the sides of the garage at the same time. And because I already have the house and trim paint out, I paint the carriage doors as well. As much as I loved the bare wood look, it was time to make them match the originals. I like them just as much now that they're painted, but they seem to blend in now, not drawing attention to themselves like they did before. With the garage looking so nice, Ann bought some of those "edison lights" for under the eaves over the patio. They look nice and throw enough light without being overpowering.

It was shortly after that Ann decided we were going to start on the bathroom remodel over Thanksgiving break. As much as I try to explain to her why that's a bad idea, she tries to convince me it's better to find out what we're looking at now, and be able to deal with it sooner, rather than wait until Christmas break and be stuck later. I finally agree and the demolition begins. Turns out it's a good thing we decided to start now. I thought all we had to do was take up the hatch flooring in the hallway and we'd have access under the house. Nope. The old oil furnace was still sitting down there, totally blocking the opening where the original register must have sat.

We pick up a metal shear and a set of replacement blades at Harbor Freight after all attempts to remove it as is fail. But before I can start cutting it out of the way, bit by sheet metal bit, I'm told I need to accompany the boss on a business trip to Baltimore. The week before Thanksgiving no less and I'm still a contractor, not even a full time employee! It all seems rather irregular to me and I'm having nightmares of being stranded at an aiport for the holiday and not being able to make it back home in time. Turns out those fears are unwarranted, and I'm able to start cutting out that old furnace the weekend before Thanksgiving.

More Delays...

And that turns out to be a good thing too, because now we can see just how extensive the damage to the bathroom floor and subfloor is. It starts close to the hatch and just goes from there. Turns out the idiots that installed the furnace thought a 2x4 lying flat on a concrete block support pier would be enough support for the two 2x8 floor joists they crippled when they cut the opening in the floor to begin with. That 2x4 was snapped in two, right over the block, and wasn't providing any support to either joist! The closer you got to the toilet, the more of the subfloor was missing! No wonder it felt as if you could plunge through the floor at any moment, because you could! Worse yet, most of the flooring under the bathtub was gone and the supporting joists rotted...

This means it's going to take a lot more than just replacing the tub and putting up new tile, and I now know there is no way in hell we're going to have the bathroom finished over the Christmas break. It takes us most of that just to get the demolition finished and a bare plywood subfloor installed. Now we're on the weekend plan, that is, spending every weekend working on the bathroom. The good news is I'm able to restore the toilet service for all but one night during the entire demolition and flooring restoration. Nick helped quite a bit with the demolition and we couldn't have done it without him. He researched the proper way to do the waste plumbing, and there's a whole nother interesting story you can read about here as well.

(July 2017)
So after six months of solid effort on the bathroom, it's complete except for the window sashes, and I'm really ready to get back to working on the railroad. Every time I head out to the garage to do more on the window, I end up doing more on the railroad instead. The stringers that were just laying on the ground are now installed on posts. But I'm finished before I really get started as I exhaust all of the already cut slats and blocks I had left from last time. I need to get some more 2x4s and rip them into the raw materials I'll need to finish making more stringers. I'm laying the track as I go, mainly because I want to keep using whole pieces of track, without having to cut them and the only way to know they fit is to put them together and see where they stop.

(August 2017)
By the time I'm around the back of the shed and heading back out past the garage, I'm coming to the realization that I'm almost out of straight track! How can this be possible? I had more than enough at the other house, and that yard was bigger! Well, unless I left a box of track buried in the corner room at the other house, I'm kind of stuck. I can't loop the track around and back toward the upper loop to finish the lower loop if I don't have enough track to get me there. I have enough curved track to finish if I can somehow manage to find enough straight track to get me there. If Aristocraft stainless steel track was scarce back when I was buying it, it's such a rare commodity now, it might as well be made of unobtainium. Change in plan...

I'm rather upset with myself for not catching this sooner. I tried to plan out the entire layout using SketchUp, but it's rather limited when it comes to drawing out large plans in minute detail. It became impossible for me to keep track of everything, let alone even the guide lines to follow. I kind of gave up on it, thinking I would just have to sketch it out of paper to get an idea. I even tried a couple of free track layout programs, but none of them really handled garden scale very well, if at all. I guess I figured that since I had more than enough at the other house, it wouldn't be an issue here. It's not so terrible though. I'll just need to nestle another loop inside of the curves rounding the corner between the fences. If it will fit...

I manage to find the center of another 14' diameter solution. This time the difficulty is finding a solution that allows enough room to fit the 5⁄8 circle and 1⁄8 circle curves. The 1⁄8 circle curves are 20' diameter by the bridge, but would they fit here as well as the transitions to the 14' diameter section? It takes some doing, and even more time, but I manage to fit everything and still only need two cuts of very expensive and by now probably irreplaceable track. Thankfully I had already bought a pack of the "split jaw" track joiner clamps for fitting the bridge and to allow for "easy" removal. I'll need those to join these cuts now too.

And no, I didn't spend the money for the "bridge clamps" for the bridge. At least, not yet. At first we thought we'd need to take the bridge out every time we mowed the yard. But now that most of the yard is artificial turf that doesn't need mowed, it's just easier to use the weed whip to get the only place grass still grows in the yard, inside the upper loop by the bridge. But I digress... The cuts in the track will need those "split jaw" clamps too. Cutting the stainless steel track, even using the dremel with a diamond wheel, is taking its sweet time cutting the track, not to mention having to flip the track over to finish the bottom. The wheel is just a smidge too small to cut all the way through the 332 profile track cleanly.

So now that everything is in place and fits, it time to clean the track. I've been using dremel wire wheels to clean the track and connectors, then applying dialectric grease to the joints before cinching them down and mounting the track to the stringers. There are places I got a little "overzealous" with it and figure I can just wipe it off. Using a scotchbrite pad, I clean the entire loop of track by hand, mainly to get the railhead back to a bright luster where it may have been sitting out in the elements. Now for the big test! Let's wire this thing up and runs some trains!

Let's Run Some Trains...

I start with just the flea market find 4-6-0 steam engine and tender. I does pretty good at first, but begins to have starts and fits here and there. I figure maybe there are still some areas of the rail that need cleaned so I connect up a track cleaner bobber caboose. That seems help a little, but it's soon back to fits and starts. I clean the wheels of the engine and it's back to running well. I couple on a few carriages and it does well for a few trips around the loop, until it gets to the uphill portion of the curves between the back fence and the long side fence, where the engine wheels start slipping.

I couldn't tell at first, but by the fourth trip around, it was obviously slipping. I cleaned the wheels again, and for the first few trips around it was fine, then by the fourth time it was slipping again. Great. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to use that dialectric grease after all. This time I clean all the rails using rubbing alcohol to hopefully remove the last tracing of the grease and all the wheels, just in case there were traces left on them. Didn't make it three trips around before it was slipping again. Alright, I've had enough of this! This is supposed to be relaxing, not frustrating. I reduce the number of carriages from four to three and it's working better. For a while at least...

Eventually it starts slipping again, not nearly as bad as before, but you can tell it's slipping a little here and there. I tried cleaning the rails with alcohol again, but I can still feel traces of that damned dialectric grease. Oh well, we'll let mother nature have a crack at it. While we're waiting, it becomes apparent that the change of plan to put the loop in front of the shed like we did would mean the track wasn't quite to the ground by the time it passed in front of the shed and the patio - it's still a good 5" off the ground. This made it a bit difficult to get the mower and garden cart in and out of the shed, so we decided to just lower everything by that much to make it ground level.

(September 2017)
While I just needed to stand on most of the posts that were already that close to ground, some were sitting on roots or something that required the sledge hammer to pound them in. Others required removing the screws that held the stringers to the post, cutting the posts off at the correct height, then reattaching the stringers. Thankfully none of it required taking the track or stringers apart. It was definitely time consuming though. I had to use the level and adjust each section, one at a time, starting at ground level. It took a few weekends to finally get them all done.

I did find that those curves where the engine wanted to slip were somehow more than a 3% grade, nearly 4%, not the 1% they should have been, so it's a good thing I had to go back over everything and check the grade again. I'm not sure what happened there. Maybe because I was having such a hard time getting everything to fit I just overlooked setting the grade? Dunno. Another good thing that came from it was the track was now roughly 20" off the ground on the upper loop, the same height as the approach trestles I built for either end. Now I'm able to level the ground and put them in place and have the bridge actually sit on and be supported by them.

Now when we run trains, the engine doesn't slip even with five carriages coupled on, but I still usually run just the four. I'm not sure if it was fixing the slope or the the elements removing the grease over time or both that cured the problem, but it's not a problem anymore! About the only problem I have now is old and weak couplers opening up and leaving stray cars stranded here and there. I have to keep a much closer eye on things, if I'm not running cars I can trust the couplers on that is. Many folks on the forums have discussed various modifications they've made to their couplers to keep this from happening, mainly drilling holes through the uncoupling pin and coupler shank, then fashioning springs from music wire to keep the pins positively engaged.

I haven't gone to that much trouble yet, but I've already gone through nearly two packages of twelve(ten?) couplers each, replacing the "weak" ones. I've also replaced all the plastic wheels with new metal wheelsets. I recently (June 2018) purchased a USA Trains boxcar that came with plastic wheels, much to my disappointment, because I'm out of metal wheelsets to replace them with. Maybe I'll buy some more of those and the couplers on eBay. Most of what I've described here took place between June of 2016 and November of 2017, since we began remodelling our kitchen around Thanksgiving time back then, and only recently completed it June of this year, 2018.

(8 July 2018)
We've accomplished little else this year and it's taken nearly every weekend since Christmas just to get it all done. As with everything else, you can read about that here too. And while I still need to replaster the hallway where we closed off the doorway from the kitchen, the kitchen is done and back in operation. I'm hoping to get back to working on the railroad soon, but between having to spend every weekend on maintenance at the other house and the disaster left in the garage from all the remodelling here, it seems there's always something else that needs done first. But that's my middle name I guess...

The nice thing is we've been able to run trains, and we've run trains many times. It takes about half an hour to get everything out and all connected up, maybe a bit longer if you count running the bobber caboose to clean off the rails. This assumes that the grass (and weeds) have previously been trimmed back from the track (in any case, it doesn't add much more than another ten to fifteen minutes to do so). It's nice to be able to sit out on the patio, under the awning, and watch the trains run... I'll discuss our current and future plans in the next segment.

September 2017