Aglime? Being not familiar with the material is it inherent in the soil or purchased? Secondly, do you purposefully create a roadbed using the aglime, as crushed rock or roofing gravel is used? Here, in So.Calif., the soil is predominately clay and is very sticky when wet and is inherently hard as garden soil. For me, I have created roadbeds using bricks and wall topper blocks covered with a mortor mix. All so the track can be leveled and walked on for gardening maintenance.
Aglime, agricutural limestone. I purchsed crushed limestone, and it does form a hard surface once it gets wet.
Wendell, I havent had issues with my stainless rails trying to go back to straight. As for rails being bent from being stepped on, I have that. Deer can certianly cause damage,
Wendell, Here in southern illinois, what most folks call crusher fines, is called aglime, because it’s also used to lime the agricultural fields…
The soil here, is also clay… The clay bakes so hard during the summer, it’s actually harder than concrete, I believe… My track is all ““Floating”” on a bed of aglime… The roadbed is about 8-9 inches wide, and 4-6 inches deep, trenched out and filled with aglime…
My track is all Brass, mostly Aristo, and more recently, AML track… There are a couple of stainless steel switches… It usually takes some work the first few years with newly laid track, to get it to laying right, but, after it’s settled, it works great for me… Last year we were consistently running 16-20 car trains, with very few problems…
We are out in the country, so we also have deer, horses, and cows/cattle to contend with occassionally… When the horse was loose, he took a tour of the railroad, and there were about 5 places, where we had to cut out about one foot section of track and replace it, where the horse stepped on the track… Every once in a blue moon, a fence will git damaged from falling trees, and we have to contend with a herd of cattle being loose… We’ve been lucky (knocking on wood) so far, anf they have not ventured onto any track…
We also have problems with ties, becoming brittle from sun exposure…
I make my roadbed by digging a trench a couple inches deep by about 6" wide, lay weed block cloth in the trench, and then fill with Limestone screenings, or crusher fines. The local stone depot here calls it 919 screenings. Rock is very expensive in Florida, a yard of this material cost me about $60, I remember paying about $18 per yard back in PA in the late 90s for screenings.
The track with the tie rot that I was given had been laid on concrete around a swimming pool in full Florida sun. I believe it was a combination of the full sun, chlorine splash, and concrete leaching that caused it’s demise. Here on my railroad, I have a canopy of live oak trees. A benifit for shade from the sun, but a PITA for the constantly falling leaves, and other tree crap!
I wonder if I should look into aglime, and if it would be cheaper. The limestone screenings hold together somewhat like you say. The screenings are 1/8" and less, down to dust. Would that describe aglime, or is it more dust?
Mike, Aglime here is 1/8 inch or less and/or dust… Easy to work with when dry, gets wet, and hardens up as it dries… Usually have to hit it with a hammer or such, to realign it, but it is very managable… Mine is delivered in 10-15 ton deliveries, which is about 11-14 bucks a ton.
Andy, The limestone screening I use doesn’t get THAT hard! It sets-up somewhat, but will easily breaks apart. Aglime sounds interesting.
I’m not sure how many tons are in a yard, but it can be loaded into a pickup truck, so has to be one ton or less per yard. $11-14 sounds a lot better!