The DÜRR 🏜️ (A Trilogy in 5 Parts) PART 1

[Hines (Bill)]

First, a big thanks to Herself for making me realize that leaving the landscaping to the professionals might free us up to focus on the railroad.

Next, I want to thank everyone here for the advice and encouragement along the way.

Special thanks to Korm for suggesting the name Down Under Railroad (DURR) for this thread, and Cliff for reminding us that “one can NEVER have too many umlauts”—so DÜRR it is, perfectly reflecting the arid garden bed that Herself (under düress) and I have been slogging through as we settled into our new home.

With that said, a shout-out to Eric for pushing us to get started and to Devon for encouraging us to make grand plans, get distracted, and, of course, to overthink everything.

So, here’s where we begin.

The DÜRR

Looking down and up the back yard

Markers placed

And of the 3 options (wood sleepers, stackable concrete block and corten steel) landscapers crunched the numbers and steel was the most cost effective solution.

3 California redwoods made from 3inch cuttings were finally relocated in the soil.

CONTINUES…

[Cliff_Jennings]

WOW! I’ve never heard of a steel -walled planter, amazing! Will it be painted, or…?

Are there drainage features of some kind?

Super quick work it seems; how long did all this take?

I love the backdrop fence and all the new soil.

Quite the dramatic change!

[David_Marconi_FOGCH (David Marconi CHHNNG)]

@Cliff_Jennings

I love the backdrop fence and all the new soil.

and my first thought on seeing that blank canvass for a fence " and ii looks like he’s going to hide it with flowering vines. What a waste of grand backdrop scene for the new railroad"

[Cliff_Jennings]

@David_Marconi_FOGCH

@Cliff_Jennings

I love the backdrop fence and all the new soil.

and my first thought on seeing that blank canvass for a fence " and ii looks like he’s going to hide it with flowering vines. What a waste of grand backdrop scene for the new railroad"

I so agree! I wasn’t going to mention it, but since you brought it up… Bill could have his landscape printed on a large format vinyl banner, which you can get at practically any length.

Then he could match his 3D layout terrain to the backdrop! How fun would that be?!

[Rooster]

I can’t take it any longer!

[Hines (Bill)]

The garden build was certainly faster than building a house during covid. Front and Back, probably took 6 weeks on and off, depending on heatwave or rain and getting the 3mm Corten manufactured then placed.

Why Steel?

• We first envisioned keeping to the theme, using railway sleepers (ties) for the garden bed, but the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC), has been actively replacing wood with concrete sleepers particularly in South Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria. It’s gotten to the point where damaged sleepers that once would have been burnt or buried are the only ones available to the gardener, and the price sits at $100-$120 a piece with one face of good quality.

• We could have gone with a nice glass impregnated 22kg concrete block wall but again cost was a bit more. It was quite pretty compared to the hardware store blocks and roughly the same price per kilogram.

EDIT: The other reason was that due to its Lego-like construction, the DÜRR ROW could have been potentially expanded, and Herself was rightfully concerned with that probability possibility.* ( Then theoretically if we had basement with a window at the same height as the concrete block wall, there would be the temptation to innocently start displaying g-scale bridges indoors at the same height as said window sill… then there would be the need to run a blue exhaust pipe out that window to cover my tracks… We’ve seen it all before. But that yarn is inhumed in another thread…)

• Corten , also known as Cor-Ten weathering steel, is a type of steel that develops a stable, rust-like appearance after exposure to weather conditions, without the need for painting. The rust layer, forms naturally over time, acts as a protective barrier that slows down further corrosion. Its durability and low maintenance requirements and price made it an easy choice. Overall Corten only cost us a little more than getting regular steel. And the landscapers really got into the idea of a Corten tunnel.

As an aside… You might wonder why you don’t see much wood. Wood is generally quite expensive and much of it is imported, so most fences and many houses use steel in its place.

• As far as the backyard plan, we really like the idea of having rooms in the backyard. So we have separated the garden railway, from the lawn & Hills Hoist, from the shed, redwood & veggie patch section essentially giving us 3 backyards.

• The posts with wires are for Herself’s espalier experiment to create the visual break using alternating citrus and stone fruit trees. The plants have been moving house to house with us and are quite shocked to finally be out of pots after 15 years of travel.

[Joe_Zullo]

@Hines

alternating citrus and stone fruit trees.

I had no idea that stones grew on trees in Australia! Funny place I guess.

[Dave_Meashey (David Meashey)]

@Joe_Zullo

I had no idea that stones grew on trees in Australia!

Joe;

I think Bill is referring to seed “stones” like cherry stones. peach pits, and plum pits. (As in the “Riddle song” folk song: “I gave my love a cherry that had no stone.”

Best, David Meashey

[Neil_Wiggins]

Awesome start Bill,

You’ll love the Corten - we put up a windbreak at the end of the deck maybe 3 years ago with it, looks amazing once it rusts.

Plus it’ll match the colour of your dirt.

Cheers
N

[Hines (Bill)]

---

Joe, it is indeed. I forget that sometimes we’re separated by a common language. You say tomato, but we say tomato and yet we both say potato! I learned the hard way, to say “potted plants” when speaking with North Americans instead of “pot plants.” Calling them stoned fruit could’ve gotten us into real trouble, eh?

Ironically, I was actually planning to grow some Humulus from the cannabaceae family on the trellis. But, Herself intervened and planted three passion fruit and a pomegranate instead—she can’t stand the smell of hop flowers.

• Fun fact I picked up today: hops grow as bines (yes, with a B)!
• Hops & Marijuana Link - Wikipedia
• Coopers brewery in SA sells concentrated wort for making beer world wide!
• Australia is known for the largest hops. We have kangaroos.

Back to our special report…

Just as we got the new grass perfectly flat, Sod’s Law (AKA Murphy’s Law, North America) struck, and the sod got pelted with stone-sized pit-sized hail.

Cliff, take a look back at the welding photos—you’ll see how quickly Corten steel changes this is a couple of week’s difference. It forms a stable rust-like layer when exposed to weather. The speed of rusting depends on moisture, temperature, and other environmental factors, and it typically takes between 6 months and 2 years to fully develop that protective patina. At least the hailstorm did some good in this area of the garden!

Sean, you were absolutely right about garden railway planning. Going from written plans to garden beds, to building, re-planning and rebuilding, has led to many, many iterations. The following photos aren’t Plans A, B, or C—more like Plans J & K!

In the background, you can spot the third garden space and the three California Redwoods. This wired section will eventually hide the second and third backyard rooms, where someone stealthily planted passion fruit vines. Could’ve been hops, just saying…

I have to say, unless you’re in the railway industry or have built a garden railway before, it’s hard to grasp just how much space and dirt you need to make even a 3% grade for a bridge crossover. With our limited space, we had to scrap the bridge idea, and this dirt pile is now being repurposed into another garden bed since the space just wasn’t big enough.

TO BE CONTINUED…

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[Korm (Korm Kormsen)]

in the last pic - why do you make such a short passing siding?
by my guestimating, it is about 120 cm long. but you could squeeze an additional 30 to 50 cm into the space.

120cm is for loco, tender and two cars.
or are you building a “DüRR - shortline” ?

edit: if you scratch-build a 2-2-0 loco and use LGB toy-train cars you could go with four cars on 120cm…

[Cliff_Jennings]

@Neil_Wiggins

Corten

That looks great, Neil. How did you cut the tree / leaf holes? And is that black-stained wood it’s screwed into? Beautiful.

[Cliff_Jennings]

Looking wonderful, Bill!
Is that thing in the middle Uluru?
To Korm’s point, you could start the siding from the straight in the foreground or a curved switch on the lower left, perhaps elaborating it into a yard…
It looks like you have a reversing loop, always a fun rail-power topic for discussion, haha!!
Awesome progress dude!

[Eric_Mueller]

@Hines

, it’s hard to grasp just how much space and dirt you need

Truer words are rarely spoken! Love the progress! Dig on!

Eric

[Hines (Bill)]

After the Hail storm…

We took inventory of the plants that survived and where they might fit.

Korm, you may note that thanks to multiple weather systems, we have had a chance to continue to re-think the project as the chalk lines wash away quite nicely.

And as we had no plans, we thought a visit Cockington Green Gardens in Australia’s capital city Canberra was in order to see what grows well in miniature and get more ideas. It’s a very English garden.

Link to Cockington Green Gardens

We then attended our first meeting with the Garden Railway Club of Australia in the Blue Mountains of Sydney New South Wales.

Many of you folks are so lucky to have a club in your own home, city, region, province or state. It takes a few days by car to get to Sydney for a club meeting. Thank goodness it’s so easy to get to LargeScale Cenralia to share ideas etc.

You may note that Australian garden railroaders appear to have embraced electrical cable trays for roadbed. This line had just been replaced and the ballast was still pending as reportedly the first galvanised tray rusted through.

So we have a few more ideas.

And finally Q&A.

Cliff,

• Yes. Yes it is! You’re quite observant! Ayers Rock looks so very much bigger in the brochures doesn’t it?

• No. No. No reversing loop. At least not until Pete buys a Tesla Big Rig . But we think we’ve found another excellent way to put trains at risk.
• Herself reminded me it’s a Garden Railway, “not Railway Gardening as the cult of LSC has been indoctrinating (me)”. So we have moved on to Plan L, M or N, I think.

Korm,
Should we move on from umlauts to diaeresis? Herself says our build time has “backed-up” a bit, which is quite amusing because we’ve been quite laxative lax with getting this build moving.

Apologies, I just couldn’t help myself. When I looked up how to spell umlaut it said “do you mean diaeresis?”… I thought Maybe I did. Then, maybe I should. Oh the horrors of English speakers making bad puns from languages we don’t speak and are left unsupervised.

[smcgill (Sean McGillicuddy)]

I love the thinking
After your adventure you will want to just put some track down in order for you to envision the feel in stead of the pencil lines!

[Korm (Korm Kormsen)]

@Hines

When I looked up how to spell umlaut it said “do you mean diaeresis?

hmmm…
about words, one has to look up* that reminds me, that before writing about you, i’ll have to look up the different meanings of mad, crazy and loony etc. to find something, that is not offending.

• looking up: “the diaeresis” translates to german “die Diäresis” - result: i’m just as ignorant as before.

ps: i love your nice little hail bits. last hailstorm we had brought eggsized hails with some orange sized ones thrown in.

pps: i’m envidious to the quantities of water, you must have for your gardens.

[Neil_Wiggins]

I got it laser cut Cliff. If you believe - that tree started life as a 640 x 480 internet image. And yes again to the black stained wood.

Cheers
N

[Cliff_Jennings]

Good call! I shuddered to imagine you’d gone through several saber saws and 100’s of metal blades, then I thought naah, Neil’s not stupid, so I thought I’d ask. Cool!

Did the Corten company offer that service, or did you get it done locally?

Also, did you have it shipped from Arizona or Texas, or is there a local dealer for it? I ask because, out of curiosity, I checked, and the only option I could find for myself (in Maryland) was to have it shipped from either of those other states.

Neat product! Never had heard of it. I’ve probably seen it everywhere… and probably now will, since I’m looking for it. Thanks Bill and Neil!

[Neil_Wiggins]

I’m even lazier than that Cliff, one of my mates is a steel fabricator with a small home business on the side. We (he) gets the Corten sheets from town - just a regular steel supply Co in Christchurch, then took it to another friend of his locally who has a kick-ass laser cutter. They’re both ex Air Force techs so everything they do is precision to the max. And way less than retail…

I just had to supply the cad file, he generated the tool path from that.

Corten isn’t in wide use here, but it’s freely available and there’s plenty around once your eye is dialed in… Nothing special re cutting or welding like stainless.

Cheers
N