Hi all,
My name is Casey. Together with my brother Cody, I model the Denver & Rio Grande Western, and the Rio Grande Southern. We have unofficially named our railroad the Denver & Rio Grande Southern. Our gauge is not G, but instead a true 1:24th scale 3 feet, or 1.5". I will try to post a few pics of our track work and how we do it.
The first picture is of our general “phase 1” track plan. At the bottom is the Chama yards at about 50 feet long. The top right corner is the town of Cumbres. Later plans are to come off the tail of the Cumbres wye, and possibly have Ridgway or some other RGS town.
Picture two shows the sub roadbed. We use a 3/4" pvc conduit about 18" long with a cap at the bottom and a plug in the top. These are buried and leveled to the bottom of tie height. Two 1/2" pvc conduit stringers are bolted on using 3 1/4" long 1/4-20 stainless shoulder bolts. In the middle of this pic can be seen the Aluminum jig we made to hold the two stringers on the post, level, and it has a hole to drill for a screw in the center of the pipes. This about a 3" x 3" block with a red triangle two way level affixed to it, just below the drill.
Pic 3 shows beginning of trackwork. Switches are laid out first, and regular track is added between them. All track is 215 aluminum atop 1/3" x 1/3" redwood ties. Switches are hand filed and assembled in a home built jig. Brass straps are brazed to the bottom of the switch rails, and then bolted in place. Then ties are added.
The last picture just shows all track work laid in Cumbres.