Large Scale Central

Build log for Red Baron Railroad

Yea Joe. I don’t want to miss the next few episodes because you want to watch the season finale. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Joe Zullo said:

Is this a science fiction thriller or a model railroad?(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif) Remind me because I forgot.

This is a model railroad thriller! No skipping ahead!

April 27th, 2017 - Installing the second screws for each post leveling the track crosswise. Added PVC cross support to areas that are weak. Cut off the excess PVC posts for some of the area, setup some track and ran a train to verify integrity. You can see a train run at about 3:20

The railroad is really coming along, but I see a lot of retaining wall and back filling in your future. I like the concept and might even try it on my next railroad after we down size next year. I like the fact that you can reach the entire railroad from the outside. Keep up the good work. I’m looking forward to seeing more trains run.

I won’t be doing retaining walls, at least not in the traditional sense. There is not a lot of space between the track, and the fence. I would need very thin easy to install retaining walls behind it if I wanted to go that route. My current thoughts on landscape is to use rocks piled in front and steeply up to the track (or mostly up to the track. I might then fake the ground with cross boards under the rail bed and fabric with a thin layer of dirt.

I am giving myself some time to decide where I want landscaping, how I want to do it, collecting the rocks etc…

April 28th - A short day. I spent some more time leveling track. I removed the roadbed installed in the area for the shed. Plans for the shed changed from what I was originally going to do and there’s no need for roadbed inside the shed.

Undoing more of your work. I don’t like it when I have to do that.

Another thought instead of retaining walls or rock would be to use shrubs and keep it pruned like a hedge. Several species of shrub could work. Around here I might use evergreen yew or boxwood.

Landscaping will come later. I am gonna install the next phase (maybe the last). Get some bridges put in place and other things over the next year. Once I know its all stable, I’ll begin playing with different landscaping ideas. I have thought of the idea of using shrubs as well.

Day 23 - Not terribly interesting. You watch me learn how to use mortar to put a second set of half cinder blocks on top of the first set for the supports along my rain garden. This is the sort of skill I would love to learn from a pro and is hard to learn from just watching YouTube videos. Made me appreciate people who work in construction with the skills they have.

Was so uninteresting the video won’t even play. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)

I concur.

So I clicked to ‘learn more’…

“something happened”

Enlightenment will set you free…

I clicked ‘Learn More’…brought up the YouTube Help screen…so, i guess that is “something”

seems the video address is no good…

Greg

Fixed. The end of the URL was cut off.

Day 24 - Cleared an area for the fountain pond. Continued adding leveling screws and trimming excess PVC pipe.

Day 23 and 24 video’s are pretty nice. But now I have a question. What’s the reason for the second 1/2 blocks? Are going to fill them with mortar? Keep up the nice work. I can’t wait to see something running.

Nice update Nicolas. It is good to follow along with how you built your railroad. I was wondering the same thing as Chuck.

Chris

I could say how you are moving so much faster then…

But I won’t.

Chuck Inlow said:

Day 23 and 24 video’s are pretty nice. But now I have a question. What’s the reason for the second 1/2 blocks? Are going to fill them with mortar? Keep up the nice work. I can’t wait to see something running.

My property line runs along the rain garden. The PVC posts cannot go into the existing retaining wall so the first row of 1/2 blocks was to provide an anchor and support for the posts. Once I had the first set of screws in for each of the posts, I noticed it was not particularly stable along that stretch. Before putting in the leveling screws, using mortar, I added the second set of blocks. They were not yet filled in as I could easily fill them in after the railroad is running. I later will fill them in with a concrete mix. I could have used mortar too I suppose.