To those who live south of the equator, especially those in Australia and New Zealand I formally apologize for my comments and ignorance. I dont mean to offend. I understand that one place is not the same as the other. I fully embrace and understand this is my lack of understanding and knowledge. I dont mean to offend or demean anyone. I am genuinely curious and wish to correct my ignorance with knowledge
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none. we dont build your kind of houses. it’s bricks or adobe for us. better against heat and termites. for the roofstructures it was mostly quebracho.
for sheds, outhouses, stables and barns the first settlers used mainly quebracho and palo blanco.
nowadays for building we “import” wood from east paraguay. mainly a red wood named Yvra pyta and the green Lapacho. more and more often roofconstruction is made with steel structures - cheaper.
fir? i loved fir, while in europe. just use a blowtorch to blacken it, then sand it, you get a very interesting sight for paneling. and it was easy peasy to cut.
to love oak, you must know its price. to me it looks boring. about walnut i agree with you.
our palo santo must be a relative of what you know as palisandre.
and the palo borracho is very similar to balsa. but it twists as crazy, while drying.
building is much cheaper down here. a small brickhouse of about 800 sqarefoot, bath, kitchen, 3 rooms costs about US$ 27,000.
Korm
Cattle eh? What kind?
i started out with criollo and some geer.
later i bred in different directions. brahman, sta gertrudis and hereford. the latter i replaced with red angus. (plus some holsteins for the dairy)
but that is long ago. about 26 years ago i sold the ranch.
Thanks for the education Korm. I would agree with you on oak as a sort of blah wood. But a lot of it is in how the saw mill cuts it. 1/4 sawn oak can be very pretty when it gets a lot of the lighter color flecking and tiger stripes. and then stained to bring out the contrast. But oak is a relatively cheap (or used to be) and prevalent hard wood. So it got/gets used a lot.
Probably my favorite wood is western big leaf maple. Not as hard as eastern maple but harder than regular western maple and gets a lot of figure in it. It is a very white wood so it doesn’t get as much attention as the darker hard woods. But is very pretty when it has a lot of figure.
got something for you to see.
over there:
and we let Neil re-rail his thread.
WhaforWhy? Derails are interesting! 
The most common construction timber in NZ is pine (pinus radiata). That’s what I’m using for the railway.
Grows like a weed in our temperate volcanic soils. I call it fizz wood, 'cause it’s lightweight and warps & twists at the drop of a hat. Gets treated to various grades for indoor, framing, fencing, in ground and marine use. When we built our house I replaced as much non structural framing as I could with a glulam version (4 x 2 ply essentially) and it stayed beautifully straight.
I can get Douglas fir from smaller local mills (nicknamed Oregon for obvious reasons), and Macrocarpa (Monterey cypress), but volumes are limited as the big construction companies exclusively use radiata for the certified (MSG) supplies - so the price is higher than Fizz. Also, it’s not approved for house framing so no one plants a lot of it. Other exotics are rare, occasionally I see larch or redwood but it’s one or two trees at a time.
Native timbers are in very short supply as they are all protected. (Rimu, Kauri, Totara & Beech are common). Mass cutting right up to the 1970’s caused a backlash so you can only get it if you know someone who has a cutting block, or pay through the nose for a commercial supply. Most of what we see now is recovered and recycled.
Hope that answers some of your q’ s Devon?
Cheers
N
None taken Devon, It’s pretty clear you have a genuine interest - and I can be just as uninformed of US (and other international) ways and habits. We’re all still learning…
Cheers
N
Yep,
I dug through all the old pictures of my first railroad (on the ground) looking for one that showed the Mondo Grass but no luck. Knowing my gardening skills it was probably long dead before I could get the camera out to take pictures 
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I started on the mine spur today. I did get a surprise to discover the LH G45 turnout I got second hand turned out to be a wye. No matter, just made the layout a bit different to figure out.
The track drops from the yard at 1.5%, with a RH point halfway down to serve a freight dock for mine equipment & supplies.
Once it flattens back out I put the wye in, to have an inbound and an outbound track for the mine.
Spline track bed next, once I get the risers for the mine supply spur sorted…
Cheers
N
Good progress ! Be running trains in no time!, in fact, a train should be delivering liquid refreshments on a regular basis
Thanks Pete,
I can’t wait. For both… 
Time to get a fridge moved into the container maybe?
Today was a paint day… Easier to hit the frames before the roadbed goes in.
Cheers
N
That’s coming along well Neil. How many extra meters of track do you anticipate?
Lol, I might have to check my spreadsheet, or as I call it - Frankensheet…
There’ s about 24m in the loop, and about 14m in the mine spur. Is that what you were asking Bill?
I have been watching this build, truly amazing! Maybe I missed it, what are the larger, taller frame posts for? Overhead canopy/sunshade, lights for nighttime train running?
Hi Wayne,
The idea way back in the beginning was that I didn’t want to be able to see from one side of the layout to the other (track/benchwork will run on both sides of those tall posts). The plan is that scenery / rock walls will go up to the top of the posts, or thereabouts.
I stuck a rock panel up a while ago to see what it looked like, not the look I really wanted but maybe it gives you an idea?
Glad you’re enjoying the journey.
Cheers
N
Mine spur mostly done, the timber I got this morning was super wet, so I tried a 3 spline with thicker stringers. Seemed to work ok, even bending through the wye.
Cheers
N
Wow you are screaming right along on this project. . . what happens when its all finished and you have nothing lefty to do. . . 
Silly guy, that is when you run trains!
Is that the “end goal” . . .ah I knew I was doing it wrong.