More track, ballasting, a guardrail, and more wood

July 19, 2009

Summer's in full swing and the RR is proceeding well. June was VERY rainy, which slowed things down, but July has seen the return of more typical summer weather.

Now that the ballast bunker is done, I've begun extending the ballast up the cut:

Same spot, looking upgrade:

And I've finished the ballast all the way to the lower end of track:

All 250 feet of installed track has been ballasted and leveled:

Click on the image below to view a movie of me riding the entire track (7.5MB WMV)

There was a dip in the track at the end of the deck truss bridge that caused occasional derailments. I fixed it by raising the track, adding ballast, and re-leveling:

There was also a derailment-prone spot on the low trestle caused by a slight kink in the curve. Note the marks on the ties (leading toward the jar of screws) made by the derailed wheels' flanges. I solved that by removing several feet of screws, easing the kink, then reattaching the rails:

I also added a guardrail to the inside rail:

My track gang:

Then I added 20 more feet of track - advancing into the tunnel!

I'm often asked where I got all the wood used in the cut and tunnel. It comes from friends who replace their decks - whenever I hear someone mention such a project I volunteer to take away their wood. It works well for everyone - I get free wood and they don't have to pay for disposal (you shouldn't burn pressure treated wood).
Here's a deck that some friends recently removed:

Some of it loaded into my truck (I had 2 or 3 loads):

And it all ends up in a big pile in my yard. My wife is very patient :)

Here's a second pile of 2x10s stacked nearer the RR. These will form the roof for the rest of the tunnel: