Took advantage of a sunny long weekend with no one home but SW and me to get some uninterrupted work done on the railway. The mainline trackbed is finally done, bar trim work.
The planks in the trench are recycled from the old layout. They are sitting on about 600 lbs. of well pounded half-inch gravel. Oh, my back. I had been thinking about building an access bridge over the track at this point, but got wise (or lazy) and installed a level crossing instead.
Had to do a bit of dodgery, because the plankwork for the south-end curve, from the old layout, is 2-1/2 inches wider across than the new north curve I built (the one on the trestles). Fortuitously, I had a length of 20’ diameter curve that I had been intending for another project; it turns out that it will make a very nice easement to bring the north curve out to match the south. (The rest of the curves will be 10’ dia.)
On second thought, I decided that a 12’ span on the station side (double-track) of the layout was too long (see first photo), so I stuck in an intermediate bent, properly braced, which will help support the platforms, train shed, etc. Not to mention absorb the impact of hurtling grandchildren.
Lots of luvverly clamps to hold t’ings in place while the construction adhesive dries :). There’s another 70 lbs. of pounded gravel under that bent. And finally, a shot of the larger pieces of rock that I dug (well, crowbarred) out of that curved trench; that’s an Aristo rerailer on top for scale. That lot came out of a trench about 15’ long, a foot wide and a foot deep. There’s another heap of smaller trash rock out of shot.
Now we understand why the farmers were quite happy to sell this land (apart from the cold cash); it probably ruined any number of plow blades, and broke plowhorses and tractors. The federal Experimental Farm behind us uses humongous tractors that wouldn’t be out of place in an open-pit mine, and they don’t plow deep. The rocks will make a nice base for a rock garden (what else :)). It’d be nice to have track down before freeze-up. Rain forecast this coming weekend (par for this summer). Oh well, only six months of winter to get through …