Construction

The current iteration of the Tuscarora Railroad was designed to be a temporary affair, built quickly so I could get trains running in short order for the sole purpose of maintaining my sanity. Having just moved into the house, and having to deal with expenses related to the long list of projects associated with such a move ment my "real" Tuscarora Railroad would have to wait until next summer at the earliest.

Planning

As luck would have it, though, the previous owners left me a small unlandscaped area that was just crying for some kind of landscaping. It wasn't large, 10' x 20', but it was enough to contemplate installing a small loop of track that would allow limited operations, but more imporantly a place to take photos and relieve the stress of the day.

The first step was to develop a track plan that would fit within the given area. Unfortunately, at only 10' wide, I had to cut my curves down to a very tight 4.5' radius. That's much tighter than what I would like, but I wanted to maintain the ability to just turn on a train and watch it go around. A complete loop was a must. My locomotives and rolling stock are designed to go around a 4' radius, though somewhat begrudgenly.

I wanted to be able to do some switching operations, so I needed to plan some basic industries. Lumber and coal are the primary commodities carried by the TRR, so I designed the industries around that. Up front, I knew I wanted a station. This would serve as a supply point for the lumber for the tannery, as well as a receiving point for general merchandise that would come from the "outside world."

Since I had a supply point for lumber, I needed a receiving site for it as well. This came in the form of the tannery spur. The tannery takes in lumber from the station siding, as well as raw hides from outside sources. It returns the empty flat cars and stock cars used to carry bark back to the station to be loaded up again, while the box cars get re-loaded with tanned hides and shipped out to the broader markets.

The coal mine as designed ships only to the broader markets, as no local use is built into the track plan. If I don't end up replacing this line next year, I may at the least extend a spur off of the station siding for a small coal unloading tipple. There are also the occasional shipments of general merchandise, mules, hay, and even water to the coal mines. These don't happen often, just often enough to keep the operating sessions from getting repetitive.

Surveying

The first step in building the line was to survey the area and make sure the track would sit relatively level. It didn't have to be perfectly level, but I wanted to keep the grades under 1%. To accomplish this, I laid an extension cord around the line where I wanted the track to go. Once I had that, I set up a laser level in the middle of the yard, and shot a beam at a yard stick to determine the heights at various points along the right of way.

Once that was done, I simply shoveled the gravel around or dug it out so that the line was more or less level. Again, the object here was to get something down fairly quickly. This is "temporary" railroading at its best.

The next step was to put the track down. Again, I had to depart from what I would ideally do, which is hand lay code 250 rail on redwood ties. Obviously, that takes a bit more time an energy than I wanted to put into such a quick project. Fortunately, I had a small stash of Aristocraft rail and tie strips left over from another railroad project, so I bit the bullet and used that. Construction went admittedly faster using this track, as I had the entire 60' of track laid in just a few hours. The track laying methods are identical to those I used in building the Middleboro Railroad (Garden Railways, April - December 2003) Alas, I didn't take any photos of me laying the track, suffice to say I just used a railbender and a hack saw. It's all fairly basic. Lay the switches out where you want them to go, then fill in the gaps with the flex track. With the exception of one stretch, each gap could be bridged with an 8' length of rail.

Once the track was in place, I took a bit of dark brown paint to the sides of the rails in order to mask that awful yellow appearance of the Aristocraft rail. I don't know what they do to that rail, but it just doesn't weather. It doesn't even react to the brass blackeners I use on my boiler jackets. Paint, it seems, is the only way to age it quickly.

The Garden

Once the track was down, it was time to start working on the garden. The first step in this was to amend the soil so that something would actually grow in it. The native soil is a very compact clay, common to this part of Colorado. (In Colorado, your soil is either clay, sand, or rock. None are very condusive to growing without a good deal of amendments.

The first step here was to break up the clay as best as possible. An old pick axe is the tool of choice for this task. The soil was compact, but not unworkable. It didn't take too long to get things loosened up. It was still clumpy, but it was at least workable. A few extra hits with the pick axe to break up the larger clumps, and then we were ready to add the amendments.

The first thing added was a healthy dose of peat moss. This is an organic material that retains moisture and allows the soil to stay loose. I went a bit overboard on this, but I figured it couldn't hurt.

After the peat moss was worked in, I brought in a handful of bags of top soil. This was a much richer material than the clay, and would allow the plants to grow a bit better. In this small setting, I could have also used a potting mix if I wanted, but decided I'd try this for now.

After the soil was taken care of, it was time to install the plants. The left side of the railroad was designated as our vegetable/herb garden. Those plants weren't necessarily to scale, but we tried to keep the plants nearest the track at least somewhat close to scale. Basil and Parsley sat closest to the track. There are a wide variety of herbs available, so it's not difficult to find some that have scale foliage. Unfortunately, there's no way to scale tomato and pepper plants. They were planted so to be more of a background plant.

The right side of the railroad was the "garden" end of the line. Plants here were chosen for their scale appearance, trying to select plants that convey a fairly lush feel similar to what you would expect to find in rural Pennsylvania. Pots were roughed in and planted. Some were subsequently moved as opinions changed, but for the most part things stayed put.

The plants at this point have been planted, and the line ballasted with patio sand. It's a bit finer of a ballast than what I would like, but again it's what was available at the local Home Depot. I had no desire to drive all over town looking for the "right" ballast for this line. Perhaps next summer...

One neat little trick I discovered while building the line. After I had ballasted, I needed to sand the excess paint off the tops of the rails. Being the resourceful individual that I am, I decided that my small handheld power sander would be the ideal tool for this job. A bit of fine grit sandpaper, and it would easily go through the paint. It did just fine. What I didn't expect was that the vibration of the sander would do such a wonderful job of tamping the ballast down. The sand settled down very nicely around the ties, giving me a nice sturdy base.

Once things had a chance to settle in a bit, the railroad landscape took on a much more natural appearnce. Some plants began to thrive, others didn't fare so well. Such is the way with gardening. Including landscaping and planting, the entire railroad was built in three days. At this point, I don't know whether it will be removed in preparation for the "real" railroad next summer, or amended and perhaps expanded in its current form as we develop plans for what we'd ultimately like to do in the back yard. In the mean time, the first version of the Tuscarora Railroad is up and running, delivering products to market.