Experimenting with permanent road bed.

H

Huh? What?

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The wife and I have been pondering how to do the roadbed for the Sprite Valley. We picked up some ProFlex Paver edging at Home Depot, and so far, it looks good.


ProFlex edging


You lay the edging out, spike it down, lay in some paver sand, then level whatever paving bricks you want to use. We're going to use 4" x 8" bricks.


I'm trying the layout for it, so I haven't put any sand down yet. I just want to see how it works. I have some other track coming that will slightly alter the layout. Once the sand is in place under the bricks, the top edge of the bricks will be a half inch or so above the top of the paver edging, and there will be more spikes used to hold it in place. The spikes will also be driven all the way down. I need to be able to pull them for the moment.


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Huh? What? said:
The wife and I have been pondering how to do the roadbed for the Sprite Valley. We picked up some ProFlex Paver edging at Home Depot, and so far, it looks good.


ProFlex edging


You lay the edging out, spike it down, lay in some paver sand, then level whatever paving bricks you want to use. We're going to use 4" x 8" bricks.


I'm trying the layout for it, so I haven't put any sand down yet. I just want to see how it works. I have some other track coming that will slightly alter the layout. Once the sand is in place under the bricks, the top edge of the bricks will be a half inch or so above the top of the paver edging, and there will be more spikes used to hold it in place. The spikes will also be driven all the way down. I need to be able to pull them for the moment.


26274149089_8ea76b859a_c.jpg




24198087108_1169575aeb_c.jpg
Click to expand...

I like the edging but, if it was me, I would be thinking of ballasting the track. Are there any shallower paving blocks that would allow the edging to come above the blocks so that you could do that?
Or just use the edging on top of weed membrane and fill in with gravel - a cheaper option. That's if you want to ballast it of course - you may be grassing the area either side of the track and the slightly raised pavours would be easy to keep clean in that case.
 
That looks a neat way of doing things. I like it, straight forward and should be robust. A couple of thoughts. I don't know what your grass or vegetation grows like but you might want to use a wider block - to protect your track from growth. Also, a little cement in the sand may help to keep your blocks level for longer.

I used a lot of lightweight blocks on mine. These are 9 inches wide.

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trammayo said:
I like the edging but, if it was me, I would be thinking of ballasting the track. Are there any shallower paving blocks that would allow the edging to come above the blocks so that you could do that?
Or just use the edging on top of weed membrane and fill in with gravel - a cheaper option. That's if you want to ballast it of course - you may be grassing the area either side of the track and the slightly raised pavours would be easy to keep clean in that case.
Click to expand...
I'm a bit ambivalent about ballast, particularly at lawn level - although I have done it in small doses.

I think the key thing is that the garden needs to be maintainable, and the railway needs to sit in the garden and compliment it in some way.

I'm rather impressed with this solution - I may have a cunning plan :mask::mask::mask:
 
The area the track is in is under mainly pine trees. No ballast will make cleaning up pine needles easier, and grass growth will be minimum.
 
Interesting method, but at just under 19 Bucks for 6 feet sounds a little on the expensive side.
JonD
 
stockers said:
That looks a neat way of doing things. I like it, straight forward and should be robust. A couple of thoughts. I don't know what your grass or vegetation grows like but you might want to use a wider block - to protect your track from growth. Also, a little cement in the sand may help to keep your blocks level for longer.

I used a lot of lightweight blocks on mine. These are 9 inches wide.

View attachment 229434
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Stickers, sorry for jumping in on this thread, but how do those blocks fair in the frost?
 
As Rhino said - OK. Better than some solid concrete blocks I used. Same age.

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I think so Paul - frost I guess. About 8 years though and still serviceable if a bit knackered.
 
Rhinochugger said:
OK - surprisingly :nod::nod:
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I can remember when Thermalite introduced their 305mm wide foundation block, and we all went 'WHAT?'

But the houses I built with them over 40 years ago are, like me, still standing :cool::cool:


A minor PS - I didn't actually get my hands dirty, I was the Site Foreman and had about 30 - 40 tradesmen working on the site :devil::devil::devil:
 
The issue I found with blocks/bricks/etc. is that if you lay the track directly on them, you don't get smooth track because you get a "bump" (or potential bump) every 8 inches to a foot.

Then the best thing is to put some ballast between the bricks and the track. I found that once I had a bed of ballast, the bricks were superfluous.

So I went to all ballast, and ensured drainage.

Greg
 
Paul M said:
Stickers, sorry for jumping in on this thread, but how do those blocks fair in the frost?
Click to expand...
I used Thermolite/Celcon Blocks on 3 of my earlier Railways going as far back as 1983. Moved from 1983 line in 1987 then built another line using them moved from that in 2000 to another which was left in 2012. All were still in near perfect condition when I left. Would appear to me that these blocks stop egress of Water thus discouraging Frost Breakup as shown in Stockers Pics of Concrete Blocks. Though having said that I have used Breeze Blocks in the Ruschbahn 2004-2013 and my curent line 2013 (which also has Concrete Blocks cos they were the cheepest) to present with no sign of damage. So you pays yer money and takes yer blocks.
JonD
 
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