Hello, steemians! Welcome to my page!
Spring time is not just the start of garden season, it's also the start of outdoor railroad season!
In the fall, when the leaves start falling, I cover up my outside railroad tracks to keep the dead leaves from clogging up the rail bed and ballast. It's really a pain to clean all the leaves off the ballast and around the rails in the spring so I just cover up the rail bed. Last Saturday was a nice enough day to get me thinking about uncovering the railroad. I use an assortment of whatever I have on hand to cover up the rail bed in the fall, so it looks pretty junky in the spring.
I started the process of uncovering the railbed at the west end of the rails, by the tree.
As you can see, sections of track are missing from the railbed. That's because I was still working on getting it put back together last fall after rebuilding the raised bed that it sits on.
I had all the sections of track stacked at the other end of the railbed, so I started carrying them out and putting them on the railbed as I uncovered it.
I finally got all the track sections laid out. This is all the track I have right now, I need to build a couple more track sections this summer to add some length to the run. Down at the far end, I have a small pile of ballast gravel that I put there last year while working on the rail bed.
There's a fair amount of dip in the middle of the track right now. I wasn't able to get more ballast gravel to level out the rail bed before it became time to cover up the railbed. In order to make the track level, I have to bring the level of the ballast gravel up to just about the top of the side boards.
Last week, I had only this small pile of ballast gravel to work with.
I started shoveling it between the rails with the flat shovel. After shoveling the gravel between the rails, I tamp it into place with a piece of broom handle. That fills in the spaces under the ties and provides a firm base for the track.
I still have a lot of track to ballast.
I only have a little bit left of the ballast pile that I was using, I'm going to have to get at least one more load with my trailer to finish the job. I can carry about 1/2 cubic yard of gravel in my trailer. That may, or may not be enough to raise the level of the rail bed and ballast the track. I probably won't get to that for another week or 2. I'm not in any hurry to get the job finished right now, shoveling gravel is rather hard on my back, and there's still gardens to prepare.
The next thing I have to do with the railroad is test all the rail joints with my flatcar to see if they are all aligned properly so that I don't have problems with derailments. It's no fun riding on the flatcar and having it derail.
Just in case you were wondering, this is a 7-1/2 inch gauge railroad, which means that from the inner top edge of one rail to the inner top edge of the other rail measures 7-1/2 inches.
Well, that's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!
Thanks for stopping by my page to check out my railroad post!
You have your own rail road? That is cool! Do the little kids get to ride on it??
Loved your open mic tonight!! Thank you for sharing!!!
Thank you!
There aren't any little kids around to rid on the railroad, just me, the big kid...LOL
I still think this is the greatest thing ever!
I would love to have a train pulling a garden all around my property some day. I love it!
Thank you!
I have to admit, having a train car with a garden bed on it would be pretty cool!
🌱👍☀
Are you going to build up the flatcar with some theming?
Posted using Partiko Android
Well, tight now I just use the flatcar for hauling ballast gravel for the railroad. I want to build another car that's a bit bigger than the little one that I have now. This picture is from last year.
dat looks fun, but way a lotta work. i want to see the "train" cart nao.
Yes, it does get to be a lot of work sometimes.
I'll have to take a decent picture of the flatcar for my next post about this project. I thought I had a picture of me on the car but I can't find it.
Excellent overview @amberyooper and your railway looks amazing, this is a very interesting structure!
Thank you!
Soooo...
When are you getting the scale, working snow plow for your train?
and the gravel cars?
Not much point in a snowplow, it's too cold to be outside when you might need that. LOL
The gravel cars...well I certainly could use one of those, just have to build one. The main problem with this size railroad is that everything is so expensive. A machined wheel for this size is at least 25 bucks each, and you need 2 per axle, so it adds up fast. If I was able to machine the wheels myself, it would cost a lot less.
$25 each?
I should start making wheels!
Wheels would be a fairly decent first project on a mini-lathe.
Yes, it probably would be a good project on a mini lathe, as long as it can handle a large enough diameter piece to turn the wheels from. You can find the IBLS wheel shape standards on line. That's what most of the ride on railroad wheels are cut to.
Also, you can buy the rough wheel castings for a lot less if you can turn them yourself. Most of the wheels for 7-1/2 gauge track are around 4-1/4 to 4-1/2 half inches diameter.
There is also a smaller gauge of ride on railroad, it's 4-3/4 inches between the rails and represents 1/12th scale. The wheels are smaller for that. People ride on special cars with seats on them that are pulled behind scale size engines, some of which are live steam. Of course, live stean involves serious amounts of money, where a battery driven electric locomotive is a lot less expensive.
Do you like steel, aluminum or brass wheels?
Do they come pressed onto the axel?
Generally, either iron or steel wheels are used with 7-1/2 inch gauge due to the weight that the cars can carry. Aluminum is ok for 4-3/4 inch gauge. I would imagine that brass would be ok also, but I don't know of any brass wheels in the large sizes, probably due to the cost.
You can buy wheel sets that are assembled, the wheels pressed onto an axle, or you can buy the machined parts, or you can buy the raw part, depending on how much work you want to do.
Most of the manufactured rail used for 4-3/4 inch gauge and 7-1/2 inch gauge railroads is made from hardened aluminum, but some people make their own rail using steel bar stock. 1 inch tall steel rail is available, but it's about twice as expensive as the aluminum rail and a lot heavier, so harder to deal with in 10 foot long sections. Then there's shipping costs for it...
Congratulations @amberyooper! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!
Congratulations! Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on rank 12 of all contributions awarded today. You can find the TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.
I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 4 SBD worth and should receive 89 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.
I am
TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
TrufflePig