After a four delay at another house, and a three week hunt for my rail bender (found), it is finally time to rebuild the railroad. The South Tiburon & Racoon Strait Railway will occupy this space, with a loop to the west, surrounding the citrus trees, and a loop at the east under a grove of rather large Monterey Cypress. The era represented is around 1929, and the equipment will be a loose interpretation of the NorthWest Pacific stock as well as the Mount Tamalpias Scenic Railway.

The layout will be mounted on benchwork about waist high. I had been planning on redwood benches, but a trip to Orchard Supply, a couple days before they closed, yielded 60 feet of wire shelving. This will provide a flat, sturdy base. Landscape cloth will keep soil and ballast on the shelf while allowing rainwater to drain.

OK Mike, keep us posted. (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Layout and grade set for initial set of tracks. Fence will support shelves.

Laser Level!!

We used a laser level just like that to level the ground for a full scale switch on the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway today.

Ill bet you railway came out better than our switch!

Well, we will see. Shelves go up today to form West Loop. Air quality from the fires (160 miles away) is very bad, so I am limiting my outdoor time.

No outdoor work today. Smoke makes ours the worst air in the WORLD!

I guess I won’t be smoking the turkey either…

Smoke died down a bit, and I got a mask, so first 20 feet of benchwork went in.

Pinch the metal so it fits tight on your nose.

Be interesting how you pull this off.

I did pinch it. I just have a big nose.

Hoping to have the west loop in in a day or two. Initially it will just be track on shelf, then the landscape fabric, edge borders, ballast, and groundcover go in.

And the buildings.

I hope your attachment method to the fence is adequate to support all the weight you are proposing.

watch out for bounce

This all depends on how well the fence was installed …

That’s a valid concern. If I start to see some issues, it will call for a leg on the outer (away from fence) edge of the shelf or more struts to support the shelf.

I think you need to plan for a sound deadening roadbed. I see that fence becoming a big speaker that may amplify your rumble.

Sprayed the shelves black today. Had to run out for another rattle can as there was only about ten seconds of hiss in the one on hand. No problem!

Mounting tomorrow and just may treat myself to laying out the initial Perimeter run. No loop, but gratifying. Hmm. Where is my power supply?

As to the sound deadening comment, yes, that’s absolutely right. The rail will, depending on location, have either a ballast bedding or a foam underlayment. Either one should keep quiet that which should be quiet!

Its outside …sound shouldn’t be all that bad…

Michael, I plan on using the exact same wire shelving support, and I did once in a basement, and wish I had pictures, but what I did was install them with the outer lip pointing UP so that it would serve to hold in ground cover and ballast and everything else.

On the issue of sound, my experience is that sound reverberations and transfer from ground materials can be very unnatural and annoying indoors but be very appealing and natural outdoors. I’d suggest experimenting and seeing what is to your taste. If you don’t need all that sound deadening material, and I suspect you won’t, it will cure a host of other potential problems including rot because all you’ll need to do is lay down some sort of mesh to keep your dirt and ballast and what all in place while still allowing drainage of rain and melting snow…okay maybe not snow considering where you live.

Please keep us posted!