Garden Train Rail set in a driveway. Help, please.

As long as the rails, when laid, do not protrude above the surface of the driveway, you should not have any problems with damaging the track, especially if only rubber tyred vehicles (motor cars, push bikes etc.) run over it. Here in Melbourne, for laying tram (street car) tracks in roads, a broad, shallow trench is excavated in the road, the rails, held to gauge by tie rods, are dropped onto packing pieces to get the level, then all is filled in with a weak mix concrete up to the rail head. Then, when the concrete is partially set, grooves for the wheel flanges are formed alongside the rails by a template. Something similar could be done in minature in your case, but don't forget to make allowances for the wheel flanges in whatever you lay. You'd probably have to sweep out the wheel flangeways every so often, depending on your local conditions (dust storms, heavy leaf fall etc.) Regards,

Bill.

"RubEric" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...

Rather than using rail like the rest of the layout, use some angle iron on the driveway section. If you don't want to do that, find some steel rail and lay it. Steel will last a lot longer than the nickel silver rail as it is a lot harder and you have to worry about rocks embedded in the tires and just laying about being ground onto the rails. Another choice is some rectangular stock that you mill a groove in for the flangeways. Make the flangeways deep so that there can be fine dirt in them without derailing the trains. When laying the track in, don't use concrete but rather cement in that area as you don't want large rocks sticking up in the mix. Lastly, put the track on a grade if possible so that it drains without problems. You will also want to vecuum the trackon occasion to get the dirt out and you will also want to make a flange scraper to knock larger rocks and such out of the flangeway.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Aristocraft makes stainless steel rail, and Micromark, among others, sells it. Stainless steel is very hard and will not rust.

Ed

in article snipped-for-privacy@news-1.nethere.net, Bob May at snipped-for-privacy@nethere.com wrote on 2/20/05 12:16 PM:

..., ..., wouldn't a Jehovah's Witness newsgroup be a better place to ask that question?

What I'm really chuckling about though is envisioning a full scale set of working crossing gates that come down whenever a train crosses the driveway. That alone would be worth the price of admission.

I would consider placing the track similar to what you suggest, but then having a removable cover, perhaps like the plastic chases that are used to cover wires run on top of a floor.

You should provide for drainage in your groove. I would suggest you consult a local concrete person about how they would approach this. Up north we often have a drain line along the garage roof line to drain the snow melt and not create a sheet of ice down the drive. Something similar may work for you.

I would agree. If you are going to cut a section out to place the track, consider a drain pipe similar to that used around swimming pools and other surface drains which would drain water off to the driveway sides.

Ed

in article Bn8Sd.8372$ snipped-for-privacy@fe06.lga, snipped-for-privacy@charter.net at snipped-for-privacy@charter.net wrote on 2/20/05 2:36 PM:

Not exactly, but I had a place where I wanted to pull the garden cart laden with rocks, etc. across the track. My track floats in ballast. I built little crossings for each wheel with a brick on each side of the track. I put bricks under each track so the ties rested directly on a brick to support the weight on the track from the cart wheels.

In a fairly short time frost and rain, and rain seemed to be enough, worked ballast and dirt under the ties and raised the track, making humps in the track at the crossings. I had a similar humping problem with a ballast floored bridge. Eventually I dug the bricks out from under the track and removed the ballast from the bridge.

If you groove your driveway I'm pretty sure you'll have similar problems. If you fasten the track down without ballast, I'd guess you'll still get fine dirt under the ties. If they're plastic I'd worry about bending and breaking them when they're pushed up.

For a simple solution I'd say just bolt pieces of pressure treated lumber along each side of the track so the cars, etc. can roll over the track. If/when it becomes necessary to clean up accumulated dirt you could remove the boards and track for cleaning, then put it all back. Not a fun job, but at least possible.

When you need to do it, a shop vac does a great job of picking up dirt and ballast from the track.