I decided that at least part of the garden railroad should be near the house, where people can see it as they sit on the patio or deck. There is a small storage shed attached to the back of the house on the South corner that will make a perfect storage shed for the railroad. I am using DCC (Digitrax), so the units will be housed in the closet. It will also make a great location for items that need to be taken in out of the weather. This is the starting point for the layout.
Unlike most of the garden railroads built, mine will be modeled on the present day. It is not that I don't like old, narrow gauge railroads, but more that I want something different. A modern layout means that I can have a nice mix of old and new. Old just means that it has not been removed yet whereas it is hard to justify things that did not exist yet. Older equipment can be easily justified as railfanning trips. I guess the most compelling reason is that I want it that way. After all, I am the only one who needs to be pleased. :-)
I broke ground on my garden railroad on Friday, 16 June 2000. You can view the progress of it below as I build it. It will take some time to build, so I will be building in phases. Phase I will be something on the order of a simple loop around a water garden. Subsequent phases will be to extend the lines further into the backyard, culminating at a large dockside container yard next to a large pond. Throughout the building, the project superintendent was in attendance, checking on my progress.
The diagram to the right outlines some thoughts on the mainline and major spurs for the various phases of construction. The grid is eight feet square and can be used to gauge the size of the railroad. Modern, standard gauge trains as well as live steam require a minimum of 10' radius curves. I chose 12' as the minimum radius for the mainlines. 12' is actually used only in the wye section crossing the river in front of the dam. The remaining curves are 16' - 24' radius. The minimum radius curve will probably be about 5'-6'. The priority will be to get a loop of track down ot run trains. Once that is done, then spurs and sidings can be added to the phase I area. I am not sure of what I want in there. That will come once the water garden is established. I do plan on having a tunnel near the waterfall of the upper pond, next to the house. That is not shown on the diagram yet.
Last Updated: Monday, July 17, 2000