When we started building the Bluestone Southern railroad in the backyard, we never imagined all the water that would run down some of the waterways after a rainstorm…
In order to raise the railroad up to some sort of ““level””, we built retaining walls to hold back the dirt & clay… (More clay than dirt)…
After a few years, we realized that we had not anticpiated the water flow, which, during some storms, would back up across the yard, and look like a lake going back into the neighbors Horse grazzing area… All this water was backing up, waiting to run down between 2 retaining walls, that were about 16 feet apart…
The area we had the most trouble with, was under the “Y” bridge on the west end of the layout…
As seen in the picture below, if you look down, you can see where the water flow has eaten away the dirt… we used to fill the area back in, and the next heavy rain, would wash it all back out again…
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When the August Operation session was complete, the last thing we did was to remove the 28 foot Hilltop Bridge, and the “Y” bridge one the west end, so I could get the tractor into the area, and create a ““Spillway””, to allow the water to drop and flow…
After a few weeks of work, we are at the stage where we can hopefully, finish up the Spillway, before the next heavy rain…
Currently, the Spillway looks like this:
Still have more work to do on it, but, most of the heavy work is done…
Behind the walls, is a 4 inch drain pipe, surrounded by crushed rock, and covered with landscaping paper… Lanscaping caps will be adhered to the top of the wall, then dirt will be back-filled…
Of course, once that’s done, then a new design has to done for the “Y” bridge…
