Large Scale Central

Ladder roadbed methods?

So I cleaned out my garage this past week and rediscovered my stack of code 250 rail, and some assorted pieces of lumber including some plastic lumber (not sure the brand). That said, I would like to setup a test bed for a future layout. I know that I want to build a ladder road bed, and elevate it. I also want to handlay.

I’m looking for some instructions/ideas for ladder road bed. I’ve read Ken’s, Devon’s, and Rick’s posting about their road bed so I’m familiar with the method. I want to have a little ballast profile on the road bed as well.

The lumber that I found is all 5/4 cedar and plastic. I was thinking of ripping the 5/4 down into thin strips. Once I built the ladder road bed, I was thinking about layering something on top in which to glue down and handlay. Something along the same lines that Dirk used for his handlaying. I can’t remember what material he used.

Thoughts, ideas, etc?
Craig

Craig,

Here is a link to the Emerald Coast Garden Railway Club web site, with pictures of our elevated ladder layout in progress.

http://www.ecgrc.com/History.html will link to the shortest list of pics. If you wish more detailed information, PM me and ask away.

Craig, you might take a look at Port Orford Central by Richard Smith.

5/4 stuff might be inadequate to the task.

I will check both links out. I was thinking of trying to make a sharp ballast profile as well. Not real high on the to do list right now.

Sad to see a reference to Jim Francis’ raised railroad, since he has passed and the railroad never got to the tracklaying stage.

All the links at the end of that wonderful “manual” are bad, maybe this document could be updated?

Greg

Greg Elmassian said:

Sad to see a reference to Jim Francis’ raised railroad, since he has passed and the railroad never got to the tracklaying stage.

Greg

I’m confused… I don’t see a reference to Jim’s railroad anywhere. I see Richard Smiths, Ken’s, and Devon’s, but not Jim. Or am I missing something?

Craig Townsend said:

Greg Elmassian said:

Sad to see a reference to Jim Francis’ raised railroad, since he has passed and the railroad never got to the tracklaying stage.

Greg

I’m confused… I don’t see a reference to Jim’s railroad anywhere. I see Richard Smiths, Ken’s, and Devon’s, but not Jim. Or am I missing something?

Craig,

You’re not confused, but I believe Greg might be…Richard Smith is still around I believe and so is his layout. Jim Francis indeed had a “raised layout”. But it definitely was built the usual way! It was a series of slump wall planters almost chest high! The last time I saw his layout was probably 16 or 17 years ago and he had quite a bit of hand-laid track in place at that time. His wife Becky had a bunch of us from the old “MLS Gang” over one Saturday for lunch. Chris Wales, John Corradini, Howard Sheldon, John Pritchard and myself. There were a couple of others that day that visited Jim, but memory is faded that long ago.

I still have Richard Smith’s complete article on the build of his layout in Oregon, the “Port Orford RR”. It’s a huge file probably 25-27 megs. I was able to send it to Devon about a year ago. Maybe he can send it to you.

Gary Armitstead said:

Craig Townsend said:

Greg Elmassian said:

Sad to see a reference to Jim Francis’ raised railroad, since he has passed and the railroad never got to the tracklaying stage.

Greg

I’m confused… I don’t see a reference to Jim’s railroad anywhere. I see Richard Smiths, Ken’s, and Devon’s, but not Jim. Or am I missing something?

Craig,

You’re not confused, but I believe Greg might be…Richard Smith is still around I believe and so is his layout. Jim Francis indeed had a “raised layout”. But it definitely was built the usual way! It was a series of slump wall planters almost chest high! The last time I saw his layout was probably 16 or 17 years ago and he had quite a bit of hand-laid track in place at that time. His wife Becky had a bunch of us from the old “MLS Gang” over one Saturday for lunch. Chris Wales, John Corradini, Howard Sheldon, John Pritchard and myself. There were a couple of others that day that visited Jim, but memory is faded that long ago.

I still have Richard Smith’s complete article on the build of his layout in Oregon, the “Port Orford RR”. It’s a huge file probably 25-27 megs. I was able to send it to Devon about a year ago. Maybe he can send it to you.

Gary, the link to the POC RR is active, stored on Jon’s server. All you have to do is click on it.

  1. Craig: I assumed that you did read the link provided by Steve as you said in your post. Reference to Jim’s layout is on page 1-3 of that document, right near. My post was just after yours.

  2. Gary, I am not confused, my statement in was: “Sad to see a reference to Jim Francis’ raised railroad, since he has passed and the railroad never got to the tracklaying stage.” There is no reference to Richard’s layout based in that sentence, only Jim Francis.

  3. I think the hand laid track was before the concrete roadbed. When I saw it last, the concrete roadbed was done, no track laid, and the work was being done on the mountains. Several of his friends encouraged him to lay the track in the tunnels/mountains first, but Jim wanted to finish the mountains, and then lay all the track.

I’m not confused… and I live down here where Jim did, and I have been there. I believe the concrete roadbed was after some initial tracklaying that was removed to “improve” the roadbed.

Greg

p.s. his layout was waist high to me ha ha!

Greg, I made no reference to you being confused, or not. In fact, I made no reference to you at all. Slow down when you read. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

Sorry Steve, there were too many nested references…

It’s Gary that said I was confused, one “layer” in from your quote… 4 layers deep…

I fixed my response…

Greg

Greg Elmassian said:

Sorry Steve, there were too many nested references…

It’s Gary that said I was confused, one “layer” in from your quote… 4 layers deep…

I fixed my response…

Greg

Greg,

“Might be, might be” was what I said. I know that you were familiar with BOTH Jim’s snd Richard’s layouts. I know I was confused about the reference to Jim’s layout…I had to read back a few posts to “un-confuse” myself. The ensuing posts just got more convoluted as the thread proceeded :). Now that EVERYONE’S “confuesd/un-confuesd”…no harm, no foul :). I know, I know, it’s all MY fault…but after 73 years it’s my right to be confused :). Enough with the confusion…

OK, so I was never confused. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

My suggestions are:

  1. It would be nice to remove the reference to Jim Francis on page 1-3 since the layout was never completed, cannot be viewed, and Jim has passed.
  2. Also, the links at the back of the document that reference posts on LSC are ALL broken, they can probably be fixed, and it would be a shame to miss that opportunity.

Greg

Greg,
No I did not read the link Steve posted because I already have it in my files and had previously read it. I didn’t remember the reference to Jim Francis in the text. Sorry for the confusion.
Craig

Craig, the ladder in the photos on the ECGRC club layout are 2" sch 40 pvc pipe posts with 1/2 x 1 1/2 pvc trim boards as stringers. There are pieces of trim board between the stringers about every 12 inches to stabilize the width. The posts are sunk in the ground between 12 and 24 inches and encased in concrete. The plan was that the concrete would never move.

On to the reality…they move. Even though we back filled the entire area with red clay sand, IT MOVES. We started out 8 or so years ago with all the track anchored to the ladder. Today, almost all of it floats on the top of the ladder, with a hand full of locations strategically still anchored. Vertically it moves as well. We periodically have to do a re-level so it does not look like a dilapidated short line.

A couple things I would consider doing different from the club. First, I would make the posts out of 3" in stead of 2", to within a foot of the top. Install a 3" x 2" reducing coupling and bore out the 2" side so the 2" pipe will slide through the coupling and install the ladder on the 2" pipe allowing for easy vertical adjustment.

The track should not be totally anchored to the ladder. The track and ladder will expand/contract at different rates causing alignment issues. My recommendation is to anchor a section of straight between curves and allow the curves to absorb the expansion/contraction. Another item I would do differently is to only back fill to the BOTTOM of the ladder. Generate your road bed profile above the hard dirt allowing for better drainage.

The last thing I would do differently is go dead rail, but the last time I suggested that I nearly go lynched…

Going WAY off topic here because it’s not a raised layout nor does it have the bevel for ballast. Besides it’s main line stuff and over 10 yrs old anyway. Not to mention I bent 1x6 material which is against the rules. It does have superelevation with welded rail though?

I guess I should have listed my givens/dithers on the first place, but I will below. The original question was posed because I wanted to experiment and use up some of the lumber I have.

Givens for a future layout: waist to knee high, battery powered, code 215 rail, handlayed (or at least proto 29 standards), and correct ballast profile. To me track is just as important of an model as anything else.

Dithers; ladder roadbed, traditional methods, anything else that I can’t think of…

Hi Craig

You may have seen this, sorta classic reference

https://familygardentrains.com/primer/index.htm

with a section on plastic roadbed

https://familygardentrains.com/primer/roadbed/ladder1.htm

Jerry

Be careful if you follow familygardens’ advice on trex… I wasted a year and too much $ making it into a ladder.

Some have found plastic trim boards that won’t fall apart and crumble, to be beter than using Trex or trex knock offs.

John

84 lumber’s PVC trim board works great