Last summer when working on the new grade and landscaping at Coal Dump Curve there was one big rock I kept tripping over. I thought of moving it, but expected it to be like the Titanic iceberg, 80% below the surface. We had some great weather early this spring so I decided to tackle digging it out. Well, ‘surprise - suprise’, it was flat on the bottom and not buried at all :o Since that was so easy, I decided to install some Belgium Block as a border a few feet out from the wall to try and contain the ballast that continually spills off the curve. Since no good deed goes unpunished, as I was digging for the block I found three more huge rocks buried just under the surface and many more smaller ones in the way. These are the rocks I removed during the project…
With the rock finally removed I set the Belgium Block just a few inches above grade…
Notice the spaces at the bottom of the rock wall where there is no visible means of support? I did too. Since I’m not good at replacing missing rocks in walls I decided a concrete sill would make sense. 800 pounds of concrete and one weekend later I had this…
I’ll add some more 3/4" gravel between the sill and the border which will provide a nice footing while accessing the track on the wall and hopefully will catch the ballast that washes down keeping it out of the grass (if any ever grows back).