Large Scale Central

Railroad getting higher

Track and Trestles
#1

Every spring I re-level the railroad and adjust for grade. And every year I start at the north abutment to Resignation bridge, that is my reference point. Last year the crews were complaining about having a grade coming out of the lower reverse loop (Fairhaven), a grade that was never there before, and a grade that was so steep that some locomotives were stalling out on it. So this spring I took a look at the north abutment of Resignation Bridge. It seams, that over the years, that abutment has been slowly lifting out of the ground. Originally the bridge barely cleared Prostitution Rock, but now there is a good amount of clearance between the bridge and the rock. This also explains why I keep having to raise the other bridge (Saw Mill Run Bridge) every spring. So this spring, I am lowering my railroad back to the original height.

The track has come up a good 2 inches (4 scale feet) over the years. This also explains why some feeder wires have broken, they were stretched each year by the rising track. So I am lowering the track (as seen in the photo) and repairing broken feeders. I may have to explain to the board of directors why the railroad didn’t open on time (May first) this year. I hope I don’t have to. That Dave guy can be a real bear when he doesn’t get what he wants.

#2

When I need to “lower the track,” I just use the shop vac to suck out the ballast as I “aggitate” it with a screwdriver between and around the ties. The track settles down into the lowered area and the ballast is removed from the vac and re-applied from above as needed. No need to undo anything.

#3

Todd Brody said:

When I need to “lower the track,” I just use the shop vac to suck out the ballast as I “aggitate” it with a screwdriver between and around the ties. The track settles down into the lowered area and the ballast is removed from the vac and re-applied from above as needed. No need to undo anything.

Now, why didn’t I think of that? Brilliant!

#4

Todd, I only undid the first section to get it exactly where I wanted it. From here on I can scrape out most of it with a screwdriver. My track has slowly ended up on a berm. I thought the dirt was settling or washing away, but here I was incrementally elevating the track.

But I do have a shop vac, and 100 feet of heavy outdoor extension cord…hmmm

#5

I’d have to think going down would be much harder than going up. Seams like Todd’s suggestion could be a real winner here. With 2 inches of ballast to remove every where, you are going to have a big surplus pile buy the time you’re done. Resoldering the feeders seems like it could be the bigger pain. Nice thing is you have a month of Sundays to get it done before you incur the wrath of the chairman of the board. Just tell him he’s lucky you saved him the expense of buying all that new ballast this year!

#6

Randy I doubted that I would have surplus ballast, yea, like that will happen. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)Today I carried a bucket of ballast from the railroad to the supply dump. Wow! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)And there is extra ballast laying alongside the railroad too. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)

As for feeders, I reconnected a broken one, I use ring terminals and wire nuts, so no soldering required. Then on the straight part of the downgrade, the feeders had been pulled rather tight over the years, now they have a nice loop of slack in them. So things appear to be going well. What I am wondering is, will need to get a smaller drain culvert to go under the track in Shannon? I will find out when I get there. I am sure I have smaller aluminum tubes around here somewhere.

#7

Today I continued the regrading of the railroad.

I dumped another bucket of recovered ballast back into my storage area, and the bucket is filling up again. The thing about lowering the railroad, is the berms the track was on are being cut down, and now they are wider then they need to be.

The track is also ending up in a trough.

That may not be an issue, it may cut down on the washing away of ballast. The area that was in a cut usually suffered less ballast loss then the track on the fills. Time will tell.

As of right now. I have almost half of the mainline regraded. so I still have half to do as well as the 2 reverse loops. The lower loop, hopefully, will end up dead flat, like it was when the railroad was originally built.

#8

Like yours David, my railroad continues to rise. This causes an issue at switches where I have concrete pads, and at WALK Crossing where track is imbedded in concrete. This year I have several vertical curves that cause unwanted uncoupling that need to be addressed before full operations get underway.

Todd Brody said:

When I need to “lower the track,” I just use the shop vac to suck out the ballast as I “aggitate” it with a screwdriver between and around the ties. The track settles down into the lowered area and the ballast is removed from the vac and re-applied from above as needed. No need to undo anything.

After reading this I decided to give it a try. Tuned up my shop vac (new filters) and headed out to the RR. One stretch of mainline was a little too high, so I pulled 20 feet of track in one piece, then started vacuuming up the ballast, mud, pine needles and stones that had accumulated over the 2 years plus since this stretch was last leveled. Pretty slick.

On another section, that wasn’t quite so bad I left the track in place. I use a small masonry trowel to cut the ballast under the ties, then vacuumed out the loosened debris+ballast. I think this method is far superior to what I have done in the past. Thanks for the idea Todd.

The next challenge is to clean the ballast. First I will screen it to remove the large 1/2" stones that migrated into the ROW ballast. Then I will try TOC’s fan method to blow the lightweight debris out of the ballast as you pour it from bucket to bucket across the air flow. I have a big old industrial box fan that should work great for this. In the past I’ve used water to float out light debris and wash mud to the bottom of a bucket, but I’d rather keep the ballast dry with most of the “dust” intact. I’ve not tried the fan method before, but TOC swears by it. I hope my neighbors don’t swear at it (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

#9

Daktah John said:

The next challenge is to clean the ballast. First I will screen it to remove the large 1/2" stones that migrated into the ROW ballast. Then I will try TOC’s fan method to blow the lightweight debris out of the ballast as you pour it from bucket to bucket across the air flow. I have a big old industrial box fan that should work great for this. In the past I’ve used water to float out light debris and wash mud to the bottom of a bucket, but I’d rather keep the ballast dry with most of the “dust” intact. I’ve not tried the fan method before, but TC swears by it. I hope my neighbors don’t swear at it (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

I’ve got that covered too. Every year I clean out my river (concrete channel filled with stones) and sometimes my ballast. I put it in a plastic tub (for concrete mixing), put the hose in, and add water as I swirl out the debris, dirt, and sand. Like panning for gold.

#10

Thanks Todd. That’s the method I normally use for stone. My ballast is known locally as Stone Dust. It contains large amount of very fine particles that would become mud using a water flotation process. I want to keep most of the “dust”/ So far the TOC Fan Method is working well but it is labor intensive. I’ll try and get some photos of my setup.

#11

I winnow my ballast with wind power. I’ve got a coarse sand on my property, that’s just good enough, for the price. A bucket with a sheet of small hole hardware cloth on top. I have 2 sizes of cloth and also sort ballast by size; finer on the track, coarser holding up the hill/embankment.

When ever I get tired of wind, I winnow and quickly it dies down, until I’ve given up…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif) As soon as I put the kickstand down on the shovel, the wind blows again!(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

John

#12

Here are some pics of my progress.

At the diamond, track had risen about a half inch above the concrete pad. I had to clean out under the ladder which rests on a shelf…

After lots of cleaning I was able to beat the ladder down with a 4x4 bolock and a sledge hammer. I got it pretty close…

Just before dark I sprayed the shelf with a jet of water hoping to be able to beat the ladder back down to the shelf.

This is my “wind” machine. It made quite a mess, but I managed to recover about 15 gallons of clean ballast and a quart or so of small rocks…

In the background is the MOW train to get the crew and tools out to the work location. Here’s a better shot of the train…

Tomorrow I’ll attack the track where the train is sitting now and re-lay the main.

#13

I used the fan method to separate the pea gravel from the other “stuff” when I dug out the accumulations in my pond, prior to replacing the liner. It worked fairly well, but some debris was heavy enough to end up in the bucket with the pea gravel. In the end I had 2 5 gallon buckets of potting soil, more then 1 5 gallon bucket of pea gravel and a bucket of sand, since I screened the debris the fan method removed from the pea gravel to separate the soil from the sand.

#14

The fan works great, but because this is Stone Dust I’m cleaning, the dust ends up everywhere. It takes about 3 or 4 passes to get it clean. A lot if the very fine stuff blows past the buckets and lies on the walkway with the pine needles on top. I use a battery powered bower to push away the debris. then sweep up the fines to process again. I decided it was best to screen out the rocks once the debris was all winnowed out. Put a 1/4" screen over a garbage can to screen out the rocks and collect my clean ballast.

Back to work!

#15

Oh the things we do for our railroad, and to save money on our railroads. But at least we are having fun.

#16

Not really having fun now, but when the trains run trouble free I will (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

#17

I hope David doesn’t think I’ve commandeered his thread. I figured since I’m doing the same type of work it was best to post it here keeping similar jobs in one thread.

Today I continued my major MOW project. Thanks to the vacuum cleaner method it has gone much faster than previous years. This weekend I concentrated on sections of track with concrete roadbed. Much easier to vacuum up all the ballast, then use the hose to eliminate all traces of ballast and get the ties back down on the concrete. Here is the road bed after cleaning before replacing the ballast…

And after putting back the cleaned ballast…

I try and keep ballast away from switch points. Here I use some concrete scraps to try and keep the ballast from migrating. If works OK for a month or so, but eventually I’ll need to wash out the points with the hose since the drainage is toward the switch…

Over at Deep Cut, the concrete roadbed does not extend to the borders to allow for some drainage. After a few years the larger stones I placed at the edges silted in and became higher than the track! Using the mason trowel to loosen things up and the vacuum to remove material I got back to how the roadbed looked when first constructed…

After screening out the larger rocks and cleaning the ballast it was put back…

This completes reconditioning all of the track above Indian Hill. Next I need to put some work into Coal Dump Curve, but I’ll need to buy some Stone Sand first.

#18

It looks like a lot of work! I’m glad it is going easier for you this year.

#19

Well, lookee that, the snow’s gone. And you said it would be July, before you saw the ground. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

#20

Thats looking great John. Very neat job.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)