Cymro77
Cymro77
Thank you Tony for sharing - Idris is pretty cool. By the way, you are a lucky stiff!! We had snow last night!! And now it is snowing again!
DW
DW
Garden Railway Construction.
- Thread starter Tony Bird
- Start date
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Tony Bird
Senior Member
Hi,
The weather is starting to get colder, darker and wet so the out side work on the garden railway has ceased until the spring. So a last play was had before the removable parts of the layout were stored in the garage.
During the winter the original boards will be refurbished and the new track laid on them.
Regards Tony.
The weather is starting to get colder, darker and wet so the out side work on the garden railway has ceased until the spring. So a last play was had before the removable parts of the layout were stored in the garage.
During the winter the original boards will be refurbished and the new track laid on them.
Regards Tony.
Tony Bird
Senior Member
Hi,
Though winter has put stop to working on the garden railway; jobs that can speed up laying the track come spring are being done. The original test track boards are being allowed to dry out before they are refurbished and the new track laid.
The original circular test tracks consisted of a dual gauge 45/32 mm track and an outer 32 mm only track. There were four points that connected the 32 mm track of the two circles of track. There were a further pair of points that connected the outer 32 mm track to the removable sections of the running road.
This worked very well but it was a lot of work scratch building the six points which were all different. So, it was decided to have no points on the running road so it would just run on to and off the circular bed. There would be a dual gauge inside this track to allow locomotives and stock to be tested when the removable sections were lifted.
The original dual gauge track had specially cut and drilled wooden sleepers and used the same rail and plastic push in chairs as the standard 32 mm track.
There were three ideas for the construction of the new Peco based dual gauge track all of which had been successfully used on the Cardiff MES garden railway. One of the Peco 45 mm tracks shares the same rail as the 32 mm SM32 track that is being used. Other than the distance between the rails the track differs in the number of sleepers per yard used; 45 mm has 36 sleepers and SM32 has 24. As the rail and chairs can be bought separately the easiest and quickest though most expensive way is to lay 45 mm track and then glue the chairs with the rail to the sleeper for the 32 mm track.
Probably the most attractive of the three systems is to strip the 45 mm track and put it back together using only 24 sleepers per yard and use the same system as above for the third rail.
Another way with an interesting appearance is to alternate 45- and 32-mm gauge sleepers.
As I don't know of any commercially made dual gauge track with plastic sleepers, I was going to use one of the above systems. As can be appreciated I have many yards of perfectly good track, fish-plates, many hundreds of sleepers and still quite a lot of new wooden sleepers some of which are dual gauge. I had considered using the old track with new sleepers for the test track, the old track had lasted eight years and it would be fairly easy to replace when necessary. Over winter my usually nearly empty garage has my box trailer in it, this usually requires a bit of a tidy up. During this operation I found some 6 mm thick grey PVC sheet left over from another job. A thought, could it be cut up to make sleepers! My very inexpensive circular saw was set up to cut 10 mm wide strips. The rather coarse blade caused the thin strips of plastic to move up and down a lot. A piece of metal clamped the saw’s fence stopped this happening.
The sawed strips.
To be continued.
Regards Tony.
Though winter has put stop to working on the garden railway; jobs that can speed up laying the track come spring are being done. The original test track boards are being allowed to dry out before they are refurbished and the new track laid.
The original circular test tracks consisted of a dual gauge 45/32 mm track and an outer 32 mm only track. There were four points that connected the 32 mm track of the two circles of track. There were a further pair of points that connected the outer 32 mm track to the removable sections of the running road.
This worked very well but it was a lot of work scratch building the six points which were all different. So, it was decided to have no points on the running road so it would just run on to and off the circular bed. There would be a dual gauge inside this track to allow locomotives and stock to be tested when the removable sections were lifted.
The original dual gauge track had specially cut and drilled wooden sleepers and used the same rail and plastic push in chairs as the standard 32 mm track.
There were three ideas for the construction of the new Peco based dual gauge track all of which had been successfully used on the Cardiff MES garden railway. One of the Peco 45 mm tracks shares the same rail as the 32 mm SM32 track that is being used. Other than the distance between the rails the track differs in the number of sleepers per yard used; 45 mm has 36 sleepers and SM32 has 24. As the rail and chairs can be bought separately the easiest and quickest though most expensive way is to lay 45 mm track and then glue the chairs with the rail to the sleeper for the 32 mm track.
Probably the most attractive of the three systems is to strip the 45 mm track and put it back together using only 24 sleepers per yard and use the same system as above for the third rail.
Another way with an interesting appearance is to alternate 45- and 32-mm gauge sleepers.
As I don't know of any commercially made dual gauge track with plastic sleepers, I was going to use one of the above systems. As can be appreciated I have many yards of perfectly good track, fish-plates, many hundreds of sleepers and still quite a lot of new wooden sleepers some of which are dual gauge. I had considered using the old track with new sleepers for the test track, the old track had lasted eight years and it would be fairly easy to replace when necessary. Over winter my usually nearly empty garage has my box trailer in it, this usually requires a bit of a tidy up. During this operation I found some 6 mm thick grey PVC sheet left over from another job. A thought, could it be cut up to make sleepers! My very inexpensive circular saw was set up to cut 10 mm wide strips. The rather coarse blade caused the thin strips of plastic to move up and down a lot. A piece of metal clamped the saw’s fence stopped this happening.
The sawed strips.
To be continued.
Regards Tony.
Attachments
Tony Bird
Senior Member
Hi,
To continue:
The strips were clamped together for cutting to length.
Enough strips were cut for eight yards of track to be made.
First a hole of a chair was drilled in one end of each sleeper.
A jig using the drilled hole as a reference was used to position the other two holes needed.
The chairs were pushed into the holes.
The chairs were secured with the aid of a soldering iron.
The prototype track was assembled.
It was then put outside to weather and see if the cold and ice will have any effect on the chair/sleeper joints. only another 7 yards to make!
If I had thought of making plastic sleepers earlier, I wouldn’t have had to buy 48 yards of track and each section of track could have been just lifted its rotten sleepers replaced and relayed!
Regards Tony.
To continue:
The strips were clamped together for cutting to length.
Enough strips were cut for eight yards of track to be made.
First a hole of a chair was drilled in one end of each sleeper.
A jig using the drilled hole as a reference was used to position the other two holes needed.
The chairs were pushed into the holes.
The chairs were secured with the aid of a soldering iron.
The prototype track was assembled.
It was then put outside to weather and see if the cold and ice will have any effect on the chair/sleeper joints. only another 7 yards to make!
If I had thought of making plastic sleepers earlier, I wouldn’t have had to buy 48 yards of track and each section of track could have been just lifted its rotten sleepers replaced and relayed!
Regards Tony.
Tony Bird
Senior Member
Hi,
After realising that I would have to do without easy access to a test track though the winter it was decided to carry on fitting the track to the base boards in the warm workshop rather than the now cold and damp garage. It was a bit cramped working on the track in the workshop but two days ago the last boards were laid and the first continuous runs on the track could begin. This event was recorded for posterity at;
Regards Tony.
After realising that I would have to do without easy access to a test track though the winter it was decided to carry on fitting the track to the base boards in the warm workshop rather than the now cold and damp garage. It was a bit cramped working on the track in the workshop but two days ago the last boards were laid and the first continuous runs on the track could begin. This event was recorded for posterity at;
Regards Tony.
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