I know about the work your going through right now . Lots of trips of heavy stuff . I lost a few pounds doing what your doing. Its cool to see your doing your railroad like I did. The pictures look great .
You are making some fine progress Matt. I like what you did in the corner where you ended the blocks and a bridge will be required. Bridges add excitement and interest to a RR. If you get tired of lugging blocks and funds are getting low dod what I did and just create more gaps to be bridged at a later date.
Keep up the good work.
Holy cow Lou that’s a LOT of water!!
Thanks Todd. I’m actually worried they won’t get anymore in. I bought this color because it matched to roof I just had put on the house. If this store doesn’t get them in I’ll have them call around. I still need some to build a fire pit too. I did leave two other sections for smaller creek crossings. They only span about 1-2ft. The big one is 4ft wide. I had it wider, but it looked goofey.
Thanks Mike! I’d looked for months trying to figure out how to get a layout around my fence. I stumbled across your youtube account late one night and showed my wife. All she said was “do that”. lol. I’m very appreciative that you took the time to help. I was lost. lol.
Thanks again everybody! 
Matt, I have felt your pain. Last summer when doing a sidewalk/retaining wall to direct the hillside run off away from my backyard, I had to drive past 2 Lowe’s and at least 2 Home Depots to get to the Lowe’s that had the pavers I wanted. And I live 4 blocks from a Lowe’s. Sometimes you just have to “import” the supplies you need, to get the job done the way you want it.
Thanks David!
I live in the middle of no where. It’s an hour and 15 minutes to the nearest lowes/home depot. I’m driving about 35 minutes now to a Rural King to get these stones. It’s a farmer type store.
I went out to work on the layout tonight and ended up just brainstorming. I’m 99% sure what I’m going to do, but I think I’ll make a post and get some opinions. I’ll leave this post for the updates as I’m building. I just want things to look right.
Make the beds as wide as you can Matt . I’ve pushed my rockwalls out to get more foreground scenery in a couple of spots . I think the trains look better when their going through the scenery with trees and buildings occasionally blocking them from view. Would like to do more but I am still in talks with my C.F.O. and Land Management department (Connie). Easier to do it at the stage your in now.
Mike you are correct. I have them too close to the fence. I noticed it when I took pictures for the problems solving thread I created the other day. I completly didn’t take into consideration the size of buildings and scenery. I was too busy worring about the track. Sooooooooo, I get to do it again. lol. Like you said, way easier to do it now than later. I should get a couple evenings this week to work on it. And I"m off friday. My daughter is requesting the firepit get’s installed asap though. Looks like I may do that next.
Fortunaltey I am the land mangement here.
I’m not sure if anybody is paying attention, but I’m going to talk anyway. lol.
I put in a temporary fire pit, since my daugter was very persistant. I will get a fire ring and stones/caps probably next month. Right now I just dug down the depth of a fire brick. used those as the inner ring and set two layers of old busted concrete for the outer ring. It works very well and I’ve done this in the past. It just doesn’t fit the corner.
Also, more blocks have been moved in and I will still need a few more to finish things up around the house. The local store did get some in, so that’s good news! On a side note…I purchased a few used 20ft curves. And by used, they are in pretty bad shape. But oh well. It let me see exactly what I need to do and take measurements.
My original track plan was using 10ft curves. So…things have changed quite a bit. The section behind the yard barn was not big enough to use the 20ft curves. So tonight I did some temporary track laying to see what I could do. Basically it comes down to two options because there is not as much space between the back of the yard barn and fence as I’d thought. I can either use a smaller curve…or go out further to the left of the barn and then circle back with the 20 footers.
Sorry no pics.
Looking good, Matt. I hope you are enjoying it even if it’s a lot heavy work. I’m enjoying your posts.
Got a chance to do a little work this saturday afternoon. I wasn’t ready to start hauling in dirt, but the price was right. FREE, and it’s top soil. So, I started hauling some in before the rains hit.
The good, it was free. The bad, I had to load and unload by hand. This may be the summer I actually get in decent shape. LOL!
First of many, MANY loads.
A little progress made. Moved that row of bricks out a little more. I hope to start building the wall that goes in front of the fence this weekend. Weather permitting and wife permitting. lol.
Lots of dirt there. Did you take up the lawn underneath? I understand that the rotting grass can cause the dirt above to heat up and new plant roots might not like that.
20’ curves are going to make your equipment look really nice but if you have to use tighter curves due to space constrictions try to put those out of site behind a mountain , in a tunnel or behind some vegetation. Don’t go less than a 8’ diameter curve and you should be able to run almost anything.
Also for tight spots you could use say a 20’ into a 10’ then back out on a 20’ curve track.
It is always nice when a train goes out of site like it would going behind your barn. It adds to the mystery and realism aspect.
keep up the good work.
Oh yeah Todd, LOTS of dirt. It seemed like sooooo much more in the back of the truck each time I loaded it. lol. I’d never heard that about the dirt heating up. But, I doubt I will get to plant anything this year anyway. I might have underestimated how much work it really was to build this. lol. But, I’m having fun and I like to be outside.
I have the 20’ curves everywhere they can been seen. The big dirt pile is where a town is going. I’m thinking a old school downtown area. Sort of like where we live now. Then plenty of trees around it to make it look like the tracks disappear into the distance. That area is to narrow for 20’ curves though. I need to measure again, but I think 15’ was what would fit. I have options that I’m thinking about. If I wanted to use a 20’ have circle there, I was going to need to go waaaaay out into the yard just to be able for it to circle back along the fence. I really don’t want to do that. So hopefully any engines and freight cars will navigate what I have to put down. Whatever it will be, it won’t be any smaller than a 10ft…and I’m pretty sure it will be bigger than that. Waiting for Robbie to get some track in and back from vacation.
Thanks for the compliments!
Looking good Matt !. I haven’t got anything done so far on my railroad as I had to replace my swimming pool . All the ice that built up over the long winter bent the pool sides inward . 
Thanks Mike!
Wow! That must have been a lot of ice. Good luck on the pool install. It’s always something, isn’t it!
Yeah that was another $2 grand I wasn’t expecting. Got it installed last weekend now maybe if this weather ever gets better I can start getting the railroad running again.
yeaouch! I feel your pain Mike. I just did a new roof, gutters, two new front axles on my truck, new tires for my wifes car and a new clothes dryer. I hope I’m good for a while! lol.
I got to work on the layout last night. I connected the wall in the corner that I originally was going to use a bridge on. But with the 20 ft curves it just didn’t look right. I’ve got about 3/4th of the wall leveled out and in place. It was too dang cold tonight to work on it. I’ll get a few pictures of it this weekend once I get it done.
Matt Russell said:
Got a chance to do a little work this saturday afternoon. I wasn’t ready to start hauling in dirt, but the price was right. FREE, and it’s top soil. So, I started hauling some in before the rains hit.
The good, it was free. The bad, I had to load and unload by hand. This may be the summer I actually get in decent shape. LOL!
First of many, MANY loads.
A little progress made. Moved that row of bricks out a little more. I hope to start building the wall that goes in front of the fence this weekend. Weather permitting and wife permitting. lol.
Sweet!
hanks David!
I got a little time to do some more work. My lovely wife did remind me that I needed to get started remodeling the laundry room and wondered when I would get the rest of the privacy fence up. lol.
Friday night I moved some blocks around then started a fire. Had a few adult beverages and realized I need to level it off some more. I closed the corner in and then made an area up towards the house for a small bridge. (Also testing some stain for the fence)
Here’s the next day after I leveled up the new bridge area. There are still two minor low spots in the wall that I need to fix. Nothing major though. Also, started staining the fence.
Ended up with 3 blocks high on about half the layout. lol. And I orginally was going with just one.
Still need to finish staining the fence. I will also need to build the rear retaining wall as well. I’m waiting to do that last. It will be easier to back fill without a wall in the way.
That’s where the crossing will be. I’m not going to build a walk over bridge and I don’t think a lift out train bridge would work. It’s low enough that I should be able to build a grade crossing. Also, notice…no fence. I need to find a way to clone myself. But with my luck my other Matt’s would be like the one’s in the movie multiplicity. lol.
Sooooo, once I finish staining the fence I will build the interior wall against the privacy fence. I was going to do that this coming weekend, but it looks like I may be out of town. Next update could be a couple weeks.
Ah, the “honey do” list. Isn’t it amazing how people don’t realize how important the railway is? I mean, there is so much 1:32/29/24/22.5/20.5 (take your pick) stuff and people that just NEED a transportation system. I mean, what’s more important, laundry or this transportation system?
Looking good Matt
Nice work so far Matt. Maybe David hasn’t heard the saying, “Happy Wife, Happy Life”. The railroad will get built alot faster with a happy wife.
Chuck