My backyard layout by Robert Brown

[rbrown7713]

Boy am I slow, but someday it will be done.  Grr7315, thanks. Here is as far as I am now. Bob.

[Jerry B44]

That's going to be so cool!

[rbrown7713]

Thanks, I can't wait.  There will be 160 feet times two tracks and eventually a spur winding into my house against a wall for storage so that I don't have to load the trains onto the tracks.  I have enough projects to last me until I live to be 120, but I love to stay busy.  Bob.

[enginear joe]

Nice progress on your Utube channel!

[rbrown7713]

I forgot to post an update on YouTube, so here it is, Bob.  

 

[Sean]

 

Must be on vacation.....

[rbrown7713]

I love Mr. Bean.  It is too hard for me to do two things at once, so I have decided to finish the T1 and then I will devote all of my time to the viaduct layout.  I have figured that once starting, I should be able to finish it in 7 months or less. Bob.

[rbrown7713]

I am getting anxious to finish this layout, so I hired a helper, the same guy that helps me with the yard. It so happens that he is very experienced with concrete.  I hope it works out because this will speed up the job greatly, maybe just a few months, I have my fingers crossed. Bob.

[rbrown7713]

Nick asked me for some info. about the viaducts that I made.  First you need a pattern and ideas can come from full scale structures.  That is how I determined what I wanted to create.  The patterns for the columns and the arches were made of plywood, solid wood, and stone.  The stone was purchased from Lowes, as they were getting rid of some backsplash stones that didn't work out well for a backsplash in a kitchen because it is obviously too uneven and rough to properly clean.  You don't have to use what I used, as many small stones are available.  Next, I decided on the size and width, and in my case, I wanted a two track width.  I made the rough shapes out of plywood,  and for the stones in the arch, I used solid wood and cut in the grout lines to make it look like cut stones.   In the pictures you can tell the difference between the patterns and the concrete productions by the color.  The tan and brown colored ones are the patterns.  Some of the areas of stone that were attached to the pattern were attached to a plastic web, but where curves or arches were necessary, the stone was shaped by a wet glass grinder, the ones that are used for making leaded glass windows.  That took a great deal of time as each one was different and had to be fitted individually.   For the top arches, I made a 30 inch by, I forget how wide, I will tell you later if you want to know, could have made them a little wider, an inch or so.  I made a straight section and a curved one, 10 foot radius.  Now comes the molds.  They had to be strong, hence the angle iron.  They had to come apart and are held together by bolts.  The basic frame of the curved section is a rectangle and the urethane was poured between the sides of the rectangle and the curved sides of the pattern and once the sides were made, I turned the mold bottom up and poured the inside of the arches.  To keep the urethane in place, there are wooden pegs for alignment and when the mold is taken apart, I can pull the urethane off and put them back on in the same place because of those pegs.  For the columns, I used splines to align the bottom, sides and the top, then poured the urethane in two halves as depicted in the pictures in the T1 kitbashing section.  Like I said before, if you have any more specific questions, I will try to answer them.  The only drawings that I used were the full shape of the arches that I drew in Turbocad and printed them out full scale on a large format printer to form the arches.  Bob.

[rbrown7713]

I am starting to lay some straight viaduct sections and evidently the slab shapes and the viaduct curves are not the same shape or maybe I am not placing the viaduct in the correct position, so I have to constantly adjust the position of the slab to keep them in the center of the slab and also adjust the length so that there is one slab and one viaduct.  Here is the way that I adjust them.  I use the patterns to predict the position of the slab as you will see in the pictures. Bob.

[Jerry B44]

Looking good. Must be humid, with the fogged up lens. Amazing you can work down there this time of the year, tough guy!

[rbrown7713]

Thanks Jerry for your encouragement.  Is that what that was?   I wondered what that was, and I should have waited a while to snap the photo, or wipe it off.  I will remember that next time.  Yes, it is humid. and it is kinda hard to make myself get out there and get to work.  If I start early in the morning,  it isn't quite so bad, but around noon, feels like a hundred and 100% humidity.  I take quite a few breaks and go inside into the air conditioning quite frequently. In about a month, it will start to cool down and then I will really start laying track, yea right. Bob.

[Jerry B44]

Yes Bob, encouragement!  With that heat/humidity down there you need all we can give!  You've solved a lot of problems with molds and moving the heavy castings around, gonna be WAY cool!

[rbrown7713]

Thanks, working as fast as I can.

[blid]

A link to this youtube video was given in marklin-user forum. 10 minutes in, I thought about your layout.

https://youtu.be/lLrV1iyUjqY?t=599

[rbrown7713]

Thanks Blid.  Those are the type of depictions that influenced my choice of design.  Here is what I am doing today. Bob.

[enginear joe]

That video of the steam engine looks majestic. I bet the T1 running around will look at least the same.

[rbrown7713]

Those are my hopes. Bob.

[Larry Sr.]

Bob

Great work on your project.

 

My back  hurts just watching you with all this  concrete . lol

 

That's is going to be something special when your done.

 

[rbrown7713]

Thank you very much and, yes, my back hurts, but I have learned to live with it. Bob.

[enginear joe]

maybe this will be some incentive?

 

[rbrown7713]

Nice, but the railings hide his train, I want to see all of mine. Bob.

[Chuck]

Reminds me of the Tunkhannock viaduct in Pa...

 

[enginear joe]

No offense is meant. I saw the video and thought it would be comparable amount of work to build.

I never considered having my whole route elevated like that. The more I see it, the more I like it. I have places where my tracks are on regular sidewalks of concrete. I could have masked them by making the face look like these do. Somewhere in my yard in the future I will attempt to have these. I like all types of bridges. I feel they add interest and excitement to watching the trains. You can't have them run like roller coasters or track racing cars. So having the terrain change significantly adds excitement to me.

[Sean]

Great looking progress!