Constructing the D&L Railroad

(Click on the pictures to zoom in a bit)

I had been into N-scale since Christmas of 1989. This stalled out because I decided I didn't have the cash to remodel the basement prior to starting the "Dream N-scale layout". The garden railroad seed was planted about May of 1998 when I received a complimentary copy of Garden Railways magizine, and discovered garden railroading was big in Colorado. For some reason, I assumed this was strictly a warm weather activity. We have a nice big backyard that needed a facelift anyway to remove the swing set and sandbox the kids no longer use.

Initial research involved huge doses of Garden Railways Magazine, joining the Denver Garden Railway Society to tour their layouts, and many trial and error designs using 3rd Plan It railroad CAD package on the PC. I learned from N-Scale that what looks like it ought to fit and what actually does fit are two different things. CAD gives me a lot of comfort knowing most of the dirt and rock will only be moved once. Railroad CAD can be a hobby unto itself, but I enjoy playing with PCs as much as the trains. I also toured the Web checking out many garden railroad sites similar to this one. I hope this site helps or entertains you in some small way.

The site for the first phase of the D&L was formerly occupied by a rather large sandbox and a raised bed flower box. Demolition required removal of a swing set that was cemented in place, a circle of vertical landscape timbers lining the sandbox, and the raised bed flower box.

Demolition - The kid's sandbox is going to be replaced by Dad's sandbox. (Sep 98)

Construction started with some rerouting of the sprinkler system, and trenching out the sod where the landscape timbers for the railroad would go. 6"X4" brown landscape timbers were selected to raise the ground level 9" in front and 18" in the rear. I was planning on going one timber higher until I realized how much additional dirt hauling that translated into! The timbers were spiked together and installed to give a level top frame all around. A three foot access was left on the two fenced sides for both viewing and working purposes. Some 115 VAC electrical conduit and boxes were installed for future use with pond pumps, lights, track power, whatever. All elevations on the D&L are set with my homemade water level (a plastic container filled with water, and 50' of tubing).

First course of landscape timbers and my water level.

After installing the timbers, it occured to me I had an Ash tree in the middle of my layout. Actually, I knew the tree was there all along, I just hadn't considered how to handle the raised elevation around it. Checking with the local nursery and searching the Internet, I found that adding a foot of soil around the tree may suffocate the roots. Too late now. I installed a circle of masonary blocks around the tree to protect the trunk and provide some space for the roots to breath, and now I am just hoping for the best.

Filling with dirt, lots of dirt.

Landscape timbers (6"x4") have been installed (2 high in front, 3 high in rear) to start with a level playing field. The raised bed will provide a slightly elevated view of the trains, and the fill of good topsoil will be a good environment for plants, as opposed to the native clay beneath. The downside: all this dirt came came in one wheelbarrow at a time through the gate. It took about 30 tons just to get the base fill. (One ton per pickup load, about 6 or 7 wheelbarrows per load).

From my CAD drawing, I surveyed the site using a tape measure and the water level. Stakes are driven about every 3' where the track will be. Track elevation is marked on the stake, and then the stake is cut off at the mark. Track will ultimately be laid right on top of the stakes.

Adding some rock to start forming the grades. Also buried conduit with roughed in AC wiring and boxes. One front center for the pond pump, and one left rear for track power. (Jan 99)

That will be Bald Mountain on the left. You can also see the beginnings of Glacier Lake (the upside down pond).

Four Mile Canyon starting to appear as Bald Mountain grows.

Trains will disappear into Gold Hill Tunnel (3' of 13" square masonary chimney flue).

My version of the C&N's "Giant's Ladder".

Retaining walls, built from granite rip-rap, define the mountain ledges for the road bed and contain the mountain soil. The yellow flags mark the survey stacks / track location.

"Biscuit", General Assistant to the D&L President,
scouts the area soon to be known as Gold Hill to make sure it is safe for the next survey party.

Gold Hill (formerly Sugarloaf Mountain) is taking shape. Four Mile Creek will start here as a water course, then parallel the track as a small stream in the bottom of Four Mile Canyon, and finally empty into Glacier Lake, which is now being relocated outside the permimeter of the raised bed into the grass area (we're expanding already).

Bald Mountain may need to be renamed too. There's life on old baldy! Since the top won't be trampled on anymore, we couldn't wait for trains to start experimenting with some plants. (Aug 99)

The days of hauling dirt and rock are over! For now anyway. 43 tons of dirt and 11 tons of rock, so far. All unloaded from the pick-up with shovel and wheelbarrow. (This was quite a feat for me. Then I read about the old firemen shoveling 6-20 tons of coal into the tender, then again into the firebox every 12 hour day they worked, 7 days a week). The landscape is close enough to move on to other things for awhile. The 50 gal pond that once resided inside the layout has now moved outside the layout in 100 gal size. This will allow more elevation drop for the stream that didn't get enough front end planning. Hopefully, it will also help integrate the "box" with the rest of the yard. A section of timber was removed for the stream to flow into the pond.

Track laying began with rail bending during the 1999 holidays. I used LGB brass code 332 rail in 5' lengths held together with LGB flex ties. Istra Metal Craft supplied the rail bender, which worked great. A rotory tool with a fiberglass cut-off disk was used to trim the rails to length. Three things guided this process; my original computer drawing, the elevation stakes I placed every 5' or so, and the final physical lay of the land. All the landscaping work infringed upon my original right-of-way in places, so my minimum 48" radius went down to 36" in a few tight spots. I also soon discovered that most 5' lengths of rail required a compound bend to get the desired shape; i.e. one end of the rail might be 48" radius and the other 60" radius (or straight). Lots of trial and error fitting here. Oops! It's a good thing rail benders also unbend rail. This was a time consuming, but fun part of the process.

Before I can finish laying track, the stream (Four Mile Creek) must be completed. I decided to use lawn edging to shape the flow and retain the stream banks. The stairsteps down the mountain will be small pools to create more water noise. (Yep, that's a new fence back there).

Next, the liner is installed. The folds are required in order to make the curves. A garden hose is used to observe the actual path of the water. Many adjustments were made to the stream bed including making the whole thing wider (as seen here) and not quite as deep (as seen above).

The water system was then tested (pumping water from the pond through a pre-planned pipe buried in the layout to the top of Gold Hill, somehow dumping into the stream, creating a waterfall, flowing down stream, and back into the pond, to be recirculated. For flow, I used a 1450 gal/hr pump. That appears to be about twice as big as needed. I have the majority of the flow recirculating directly back into the pond. I can't use full flow, or I overflow the banks of my stream. Oh yes, and it was that dumping from the pipe into the stream that confused me somewhat. (OK - a lot !). A friend of mine had already proven that a pipe alone, or modified sprinkler heads only spray water all over the place. The basic problem is converting water under pressure into water flowing by gravity down the stream. You need a small water reservoir.

My first attempt was putting the black pipe into a small mop bucket that had a nice flat pour spout on it. The bucket fills with water, which then overflows out the spout into the stream. It worked great at low flows. But, when I cranked up the flow, it overflowed the spout and wouldn't fall where it was supposed to. I liked the bucket because it was going to be small and easy to hide. I ended up with the pre-formed upper pond shown here. The nice wide spout works great. To hide it, I built a strong wooden cover for the pond, then stacked rocks directly on top of it to form a mountain peak. The upper pond is also filled with lava rock to help filter the water. I was concerned about how I was going to have to drain the upper pond in the winter. No problem. Turns out when you turn off the pump, all the water siphons out of the upper pond and returns to the lower pond via the pipe, and of course the stream just empties into the pond. The only downfall is that your pond level lowers about 2" during operation to fill the stream. Don't fill it up while running, or the lower pond will overflow when you shut it down. (To minimize the drop in water level, I have since added a check valve to the supply line. This stops the backflow into the pond. Pond still drops about 1 1/2" though.)

It is here, at the waterfall, we had the most difficulty hiding the rubber liner and deciding where to place rocks to hide it while still keeping the water in the stream.

At this point functional, but not a pretty site!

Trim the liner back, add a few well placed larger rocks, and a lot of little ones (1 1/2" minus gold ore), and it actually looks something like a stream. Nice water noise from the waterfall and where the stream dumps into the pond.

Finally, to the train part! Track location was marked with flags. Then, a 3" deep by 6" wide trench was dug with a garden hoe. I filled the trench with ballast (grey crusher fines a.k.a. grey breeze), placed the pre-bent rails on top, added more ballast (as shown here), then smoothed it all out with an old paint brush. Still using my elevation stakes as a guide, I only needed to check local gradient changes between stakes using a flat car with a plumber's level mounted length wise (1/8" per ft. = 1% grade), and a cheap line level mounted side ways to check the super-elevation of the track. Sections were joined together using Split-Jaw rail clamps and a dab of "Ox-Gard" anti-oxidant paste. Track is powered at two different places to help minmize voltage drop.

Golden Spike Day (April 99). This is gettin' fun now! (I was kind of hoping for the last 18 months that it would be). Temporary bridges and trestles have been been installed over the Gold Hill waterfall, and Four Mile Creek. I can now run a train over the full 147 foot loop without the fear of it running past end-of-track. No. 32 is pulling the track inspection car. Track power is still temporary.

Cribbing has been installed at select locations to keep the terrain away from the track, or support the roadbed, just like the prototype. The green stuff is natural moss. Here you also see California Creek, a dry creek and a Bridge Master King Post bridge.

Here is the pond after trimming it out with Oklaohma Buff. Many new plants have also been added. AC power is tied into the house now. Just flip a switch and instant stream and waterfall. This is Spring of '99. We planted many Moss Roses to temporarily fill in the many bare spots. They turned out to be beautiful throughout the summer. Guess we were having so much fun running trains we didn't take enough pictures.

The Gold Hill bridge spans the waterfall flowing into Four Mile Creek. It was built using Garden Texture's Compression Truss bridge plans. It was easy to build and looks great.

More Garden Texture's plans - the Howe Truss bridge and Narrow Trestle bents combine to span Four Mile Creek and the track below at the mouth of the canyon. All temporary bridges have now been replaced.

A train coming out of Four Mile Canyon. The dream has come true! (April 2001)

This beautiful little 100 gallon pond is ... Well, its just too little. (The most common mistake in pond building, I'm told).

So, here we go again! We're going for 1500 gallons this time. About 8' X 16' X 30" ought to do it. (June 2001)

Another 16 tons of hard clay was removed and sculpted to form shelves. Since the pond is on a slope, the top shelf will hold the rock edging and be about 3" below water level. The next shelf will hold the plants. Bottom is 30" deep to protect fish from predators (cats, racoons, large birds), and allow us to winter over both fish and plants. I used my homemade water level to set all elevations. The water level of the new pond had to match the water level of the old pond so the stream would still dump in at the same elevation. The box on the far side is a skimmer, which houses the pumps (one for the pond waterfall, one for the RR stream). The near box is the pond waterfall. The pump takes water from the skimmer and the bottom drain. Skimmer and waterfall components were made by Pond Sweep. EPDM pond liner (not shown) came from Just Liners Plus.

You can see that this pond will be a little larger than the old one. The trench to the railroad is the water supply pipe for the Gold Hill waterfall.

The fish love their new home. They can actually swim now. Linda really likes the fish and is enjoying learning about water gardening, as am I. The sound of the new waterfall kind of dwarfs the little spill from Four Mile Creek, which enters top right.

The new pond compliments the railroad nicely. (Aug 2001)

Words of Wisdom
"There comes a time when it is best to stop worrying and just make a start."
"Putting off a hard job only makes it harder."
"If you work slowly at a job, it is soon done. If you rush, it can take forever."
Peter Jones, Scribblings on a workshop wall, Garden Railways December 1999

"A garden railroad is a journey, not a destination."

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Last update: 3 March 2002
Music: The Easy Winners, 1901, Scott Joplin