I have never built, nor will I ever have the opportunity to build, a railway in the garden. As a result, the subject of track laying has been of scant interest to me and I tend to quickly scan and dismiss threads on that topic.
Yesterday (13.5.2020) my attention was drawn to one of those garden makeover programmes that are a staple of afternoon viewing. It was flagged up by my wife's cousin, who, aware of my interest in model railways, brought it to my attention as the garden in question was to incorporate a G Scale line. The premise was that two garden designers drew up alternative designs, to an agreed budget, for the householder to decide which one they wanted. The husband had collected G Scale items over the years but had no layout, one of the elements in the design had to incorporate a garden railway. The reason that I am mentioning this is that the railway line was laid at ground level using a method that I have not previously seen before. As I have already said, it's not a topic of great interest so I apologise if it has been mooted before but I do not recall it being suggested on the Forum before.
The earth was levelled along the line of the track. Next, interlocking sections of plastic gravel retaining grid was laid along the line. These are basically 50mm deep rugged plastic box sections. open top and bottom, designed for gravel driveways. Once laid the grids were filled level, to the top, with course stone chips to provide a level, firm, free draining base for the railway line. This was then covered with a layer of fine grit, to provide scale ballast appearance, and finally the track was laid on top of that. The whole process took very little time. There was no concrete foundation, no shuttering, no construction required. I can see that it has the additional merit that if ever a need arose, in the future, to alter or extend the track plan, the grids could be lifted and repositioned/reused. If I was ever going to built a ground level railway line in the garden, it would be the method I would choose. Bare in mind these people were garden designers/landscape gardeners, I think they made a pretty good first attempt at a garden railway. The only glaring omission, to those in the know, was the failure to lay a weed suppressing membrane between the earth and the plastic grid. I hope this provides food for thought.
I did once call in a Landscape Gardener to have a look at my garden but he said he could not help me as my garden was in portrait.
David
Yesterday (13.5.2020) my attention was drawn to one of those garden makeover programmes that are a staple of afternoon viewing. It was flagged up by my wife's cousin, who, aware of my interest in model railways, brought it to my attention as the garden in question was to incorporate a G Scale line. The premise was that two garden designers drew up alternative designs, to an agreed budget, for the householder to decide which one they wanted. The husband had collected G Scale items over the years but had no layout, one of the elements in the design had to incorporate a garden railway. The reason that I am mentioning this is that the railway line was laid at ground level using a method that I have not previously seen before. As I have already said, it's not a topic of great interest so I apologise if it has been mooted before but I do not recall it being suggested on the Forum before.
The earth was levelled along the line of the track. Next, interlocking sections of plastic gravel retaining grid was laid along the line. These are basically 50mm deep rugged plastic box sections. open top and bottom, designed for gravel driveways. Once laid the grids were filled level, to the top, with course stone chips to provide a level, firm, free draining base for the railway line. This was then covered with a layer of fine grit, to provide scale ballast appearance, and finally the track was laid on top of that. The whole process took very little time. There was no concrete foundation, no shuttering, no construction required. I can see that it has the additional merit that if ever a need arose, in the future, to alter or extend the track plan, the grids could be lifted and repositioned/reused. If I was ever going to built a ground level railway line in the garden, it would be the method I would choose. Bare in mind these people were garden designers/landscape gardeners, I think they made a pretty good first attempt at a garden railway. The only glaring omission, to those in the know, was the failure to lay a weed suppressing membrane between the earth and the plastic grid. I hope this provides food for thought.
I did once call in a Landscape Gardener to have a look at my garden but he said he could not help me as my garden was in portrait.
David
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