Building the NM&RC

[Kev1340]

Very good work on the terrace Svein, a great addition to your home

Now back to the railway

Cheers,

Kev

[Svein]

Went to another garden railway meeting yesterday, what better way to spend a beautiful sunday than running trains outside on a great layout along with friends :





















The Norwegian Roundhouse dealer also attended the meeting, and we added a couple of new engines to our roster before we returned back home in the evening. The diesel was ordered 5 weeks ago and is battery powered with lights and sound, nice to have when one just wants to run a few laps without messing around with filling the boiler and firing up to get steam pressure:



Guess it's about time we start building some cars and put those engines into service!

[Tyson Rayles]

Neat, looks like it was a lot of fun!

[Svein]

Back to our own garden railway project, and an update.

A couple of months ago there was a landslide at the neighbour's property just under 100 meters away, and several tons of soil went down into the river and almost blocked it completely. The neighbours were evacuated, and geologists came to survey the situation. In case the ground conditions here was the same as at the neighbour's property, we were strongly advised against putting any more load on top of our back yard, as it could cause the entire slope down towards the river to collapse! So much for our plans to fill the inside of the layout with all the sand and gravel we had piled up in the driveway...

Anyway, we talked to our other neighbour, who had assisted in building our house back in 1955, and he could inform us that there had been another landslide at the neighbours earlier, just a couple of years after their house was built (also in 1955). Even though the slope towards the river is much steeper at our place, there had never been any indications of any movement in the ground, and apparently our ground conditions are a lot more stable than at the neighbours place.

Still, to be on the safer side, we decided to go for a more lightweight approach. The stone framing around the layout was abandoned, as was the sand/gravel filling. We'll just have to find another place to put all that stuff, or simply have it hauled away. We went with vertical paneling for the framing, and lightweight EPS bags to fill the inside of the framework. Here are some pics of what has been done the last couple of weeks:

Finished the track bed and paneled the outside walls (the area without paneling will be replaced with an old style wooden trestle):







Removed all the old sand/gravel filling and replaced it with lightweight EPS bags:







We have also tried out different types of aquarium gravel for ballast, plus a couple of which we have sifted ourself:

Aquarium ballast #1:



Aquarium ballast #2:



Aquarium ballast #3:



Aquarium ballast #4:



Siftet ballast #1:



Sifted ballast #2:



Svein

[Sumpter250]

A couple of months ago there was a landslide at the neighbour's property just under 100 meters away, and several tons of soil went down into the river and almost blocked it completely. The neighbours were evacuated, and geologists came to survey the situation. In case the ground conditions here was the same as at the neighbour's property, we were strongly advised against putting any more load on top of our back yard, as it could cause the entire slope down towards the river to collapse! So much for our plans to fill the inside of the layout with all the sand and gravel we had piled up in the driveway...Anyway, we talked to our other neighbour, who had assisted in building our house back in 1955, and he could inform us that there had been another landslide at the neighbours earlier, just a couple of years after their house was built (also in 1955). Even though the slope towards the river is much steeper at our place, there had never been any indications of any movement in the ground, and apparently our ground conditions are a lot more stable than at the neighbours place.

Folk up in Wisconsin refer to us here in Illinois, as "Flatlanders"

There is one benefit to being a "Flatlander" We don't have to worry about "Landslides" AND
we spend less on Gasoline, not having to drive UP-hill

Happy to hear you are on more stable ground, and, are taking the precautions to reduce any risk.

[Svein]

The Easter Holidays marked the beginning of the season for the Reverend Creek Garden Railway, and our first (and probably largest) project for 2015 is the curved wood trestle in front of the terrace. With a maximum height of one meter (40") and 14 spans it's going to be quite an eye catcher, and hopefully the centerpiece of the layout if we succeed in our efforts.

As this is our very first trestle, I've been spent quite some time searching the Internet for both pictures and construction tips as well as inspiration. I made a simple jig to make sure all the spans were identical, and after spending several hours ripping pressure treated construction lumber into more suitable dimensions for stringers and bridge ties, we were finally ready to start construction:







Yesterday we spent even more hours ripping all the posts for the frame bents (52 posts in total), and today we began nailing and gluing bridge ties to the spans. 5 spans are finished, and hopefully the rest will be finished tomorrow. After marking the final location of the trestle, the existing framework in the curve will be cut and removed, and the trestle spans will be bolted together and temporarily supported while we build the bents to fit the different heights through the curve.

[ngauger]

That's going to be Great!!!!

[Svein]

Sadly the NM&RC has been dormant all summer and autumn, but yesterday I finally got around to running some laps and testing the trackwork before inviting a friend over today for some live steam action! A rather chilly morning, but with the sun came some more pleasant temperatures just a couple of degrees below freezing, and it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous and sunny day perfect for running trains!

I was too busy running trains to spend much time with the camera, but I managed to take a couple of pics:

[ngauger]

Sadly the NM&RC has been dormant all summer and autumn, but yesterday I finally got around to running some laps and testing the trackwork before inviting a friend over today for some live steam action! A rather chilly morning, but with the sun came some more pleasant temperatures just a couple of degrees below freezing, and it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous and sunny day perfect for running trains!

I was too busy running trains to spend much time with the camera, but I managed to take a couple of pics:

Glad you got a chance to run your trains for a bit... Great pics!!!

[Schraddel]

... A rather chilly morning, but with the sun came some more pleasant temperatures just a couple of degrees below freezing, and it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous and sunny day perfect for running trains!

Great! This is really great Svein!
I presume the temperature was above -20°C?

Lutz

[Svein]

... A rather chilly morning, but with the sun came some more pleasant temperatures just a couple of degrees below freezing, and it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous and sunny day perfect for running trains!

Great! This is really great Svein!
I presume the temperature was above -20°C?

Lutz

LOL, we may be vikings up here in the north, but -20°C is still a bit on the cold side for outdoor live steam activities! As I said; a rather chilly morning with -11°C, rising to a couple of degrees below freezing (-2°C) around noon.

[ngauger]

Now that we can see the pictures again.... MAN!!! This is a nice railroad!!!!!

[TrainNut]

I agree! That's really cool. I tried to build an outdoor RR several years back but ended up taking it all back up as the family decided we wanted a pool in that area instead.

[Svein]

Slightly off topic, but not quite... Last weekend I went to visit the Lommedalsbanen museum railway for the first time. Lommedalsbanen collects engines and cars from different narrow gauge construction railways, industrial railways, and even some from the Norwegian military. They also have built a 600 mm gauge railroad with a couple of stations and sidings with very interesting rolling stock on display, and run a small passenger service back and forth for the visitors to enjoy.

Here's a short video I made from my visit on Sunday. Sadly, I'm struggling a little with mp4 files on my website; some are working and some are not. If the video won't show, just scroll to the bottom and use the direct link instead.

[Svein]

A short video from this year's first running session:
http://www.hjemstad.no/en/garden-railway...ening-2017