Greg does make cense … (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
My landscape/masonry contractor completed their work today, Day 4, in half a day…of course they brought in four folks to do it. See the finished baseline they did for me under my guidance on the design and details. Crushed stone gravel #9 covers all the line. I’ll use more to lay the tracks after I glue side pieces on both sides of the blocks to hold in the gravel in place, prevent rain washing it off, etc. See the next to last photo that shows how the gravel will be positioned up to the bridges with an example of the siding pieces I’ll glue to the top of the blocks on each side. I found this sample side piece at Home Depot yesterday, it’s a plastic type material used for deck siding. The last photo is of the four person crew who completed the work today…the guy in the red hat is the mason who has a excellent skills and an eye for leveling and placing the blocks…he did all of the block and cap stones placement and gluing.
Now my work begins to lay track…luckily a friend of mine has offered to help!
Looks great… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Looking good, and the extra effort to minimize grades is clear, and I am sure will be reflected in your “operating pleasure”. I’ll bet you are getting the bug to run a train!
Greg
p.s. I hope you know my “wordy” response was mostly for the benefit of others, since the greater susceptibility of finer stranded wire to corrosion was something that I did not think of right away. Luckily I saw this issue with other’s layouts and while helping them repair their “electrics”, and avoided it on my layout which has about 10 feeders.
Last Friday I worked four hours on laying track on the outer loop mainline including anchoring the four LGB 50610 truss bridges over each of the two open spans. A friend came by and we worked another three hours. Then Saturday and Sunday mornings, I worked another eight hours…only four sections of six foot AML flex track remaining. So, before the rain hit today, I hooked up one of my DCC systems, the Piko Central Station and used my Massoth Navigator, to test run my LGB Rail Truck with its Soundtraxx Tsunami2 power/sound decoder I installed last year. It ran great.
Last Friday I bought a garden stool, called a GardenKneeler by Yard Butler, for use in installing the track, i.e., measuring, cutting rail, and installing the rail clamps. For a senior citizen with lots of arthitis, this thing is well worth the $50 I paid for it at my local hardware store. It’s both a stool and a kneeling pad…works super!
Besides the photos, I’ll try to post a short video of the Rail Truck operating while pulling a hand car…it has Soundtraxx’ “electrical locomotive” sound file, so it makes all kinds of little noises as it runs, and I can ring the bell and blow the horn using my Massoth Navigator wireless controller.
Today I’ve replaced the short video with a 4 minute version that shows the LGB Rail Truck taking a lap around the entire outer loop mainline I completed in early June. YouTube Video:
not to derail, why not host your videos on youtube and then embed the link here?
Greg
Andy Clarke said:
Looks great… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Pretty much
Greg Elmassian said:
not to derail, why not host your videos on youtube and then embed the link here?
Greg
Greg - Thanks for your suggestion. I do have a YouTube Channel set up for my long videos…there’s a link to it on my Website. But for this 16 second long video I’d like to post it directly to this forum and not to the YouTube. Why can’t I post this 16 second video to this forum?
Tom
Update: I did load the short video onto my YouTube Channel and entered that into my prior posting. But I’d still like to know why I can’t post the video directly onto the posting…is there a file size limitation?
Thomas White said:
Greg Elmassian said:
not to derail, why not host your videos on youtube and then embed the link here?
… Why can’t I post this 16 second video to this forum?..
Hiya Thomas, Bob doesn’t have the server capacity to host videos on this forum site; the cost would be prohibitive and heck we’re lucky to have Bob at all. The video has to be hosted on somebody else’s server, taking up space and cost on their server, and then you link to it on this forum (using embed code in video).
video deleted
Tom, the links and the video encoding permitted by this forum are limited.
I don’t think you can just link to a video on your site.
Greg
For anyone who’d like to watch a 4 minute video of the LGB Rail Truck taking a spin around the entire newly laid outer loop of my garden railway, the YouTube Video link follows. (I deleted the short 16 second video).
Enjoy!
I like that LGB rail truck. I went with the Kadee and did remote uncoupling with mine via a Zimo decoder.
The motor block in the truck is the LGB standard that is used in the powered tender/small diesels and can pull several cars with no problem.
Dan Pierce said:
I like that LGB rail truck. I went with the Kadee and did remote uncoupling with mine via a Zimo decoder.
The motor block in the truck is the LGB standard that is used in the powered tender/small diesels and can pull several cars with no problem.
Thanks, Dan, for the feedback. Where did you position the sound board and speaker with your install?
There was no space inside the truck to position the Soundtraxx Tsunami2 decoder so I ran the wires up through the storage compartment in the truck bed and positioned it there. I then glued a good quality Massoth #8241040 40Lx40Wx17Hmm 8Ohm 2 Watts speaker face down onto the truck bed. There’s a nice ridge around the speaker cone that provides a good seal to the speaker face, and the sound quality is excellent. Finally, I added the log load into the truck bed to conceal both the sound board and the speaker. The horn on this little rail truck really wails!
Tom,
Vey nice layout, it definitely has room for expansion. I can see a double track at all the bridges and other area.
One point, at 0.40 at the end of the bridge are two long blue screws (concrete screws), take them out and replace them with the right length screws and than paint them black to match your ties so they are not so prominate. Just a suggestions because I can see you are far from being finished with your layout (who is, I do not know) but just a suggestion.
Keep up the good work. I wish I had raised my layout above my knee height.
Any way have fun that is what is all about.
I really love the gravel-between-retaining-walls. Lots of functional benefits and looks just great.
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Collen - Yes, I know I need shorted concrete screws…just haven’t gone to the hardware store yet. But I was anxious to try out the new rail line…the finer details can wait!
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Cliff - Yes, I found that gravel at a local stone and gravel suppy company only about 5 miles away which is pretty much to scale for G…they call it Crushed Stone #9. My contractor hauled 2 1/2 tons for the retaining wall section of the RR. Then they had delivered by the supplier another 3 tons to spread it onto the rest of the RR. The bulk gravel is packaged in a large 1 1/2 ton synthetic type bag (i.e., 3000 pounds each). After my contractor completed the project, there was half a bag remaining in front of my garage and I’ve used most of that to level out the track at the front level grade coming out of the stand alone elevated section. I still need to do some leveling of the track on top of the retaining wall and then I’ll finish it off with the gravel spread on top of the track and a brush…make it look like actual prototyical embedded track.
Yikes! I was watering my grass seedlings next to my new garden railway base that my contractor planted, and I heard a large cracking sound and then a thud! A large rotted tree limb had fallen luckily right in front of my deck’s starway…didn’t hit my new or old layouts. After than shock, I’m going to get a tree company to inspect the tree branches of the two large Oaks in my backyard and the large Poplar in my front yard. If a limb this size fell on me while I’m laying more track, it would give me a serious headache! I’m planning on having an open house for my new railroad in the Fall and I don’t want any safety issues from my trees with visitors.
I have an agreement with my plants… nothing grows over the ROW, period. Otherwise me and Mr. PoleSaw have an appointment 
Seriously, glad you avoided damage…
Greg