Layout & Design

My first concern was to make this railway as maintenance free as possible. It is at ground level at what we will call the upper end, which limits my ability for maintenance as my age now makes it difficult for me to get down on my knees to work the railway.  The area is on a natural slope with a walkway between the house and the pergola flower box that connects the upper driveway with the lower patio; an elevation change of about seven feet vertical in fifteen feet of distance.  The lower end of the flower box has a retaining wall about three feet high made of large landscape timbers which also doubles as a nice elevation for steaming up a loco while sitting on a stool. So that part of the railway is elevated for easy maintenance. 

 

I spent the winter of 2012 conducting research on the namesake railway and designing its soon to be small cousin.  It has been years since I lived in Southern California and only had vague memories what the view was from the railcar when I rode the railway way back in the 1960’s. The internet provided lots of photos, passenger point of view videos and interactive aerial views that I could manipulate via Google Earth. The ability to crowd source through social media helped to bring back memories of my younger days.  As a retired Navy imagery analyst I resurrected my skills conducting the discipline of remote sensing analysis that I use to do onboard aircraft carriers.  Now I can do it in the comfort of my own home. I developed a storyboard of what I wanted the finished railway to look like along with pictures of details I wanted to incorporate.  Additionally, I planned the construction methodology and created a detailed lists of supplies needed to make the construction go smoothly with minimal “on the knees” time.

For the right of way, I opted to use a pre-made pvc roadbed that would provide support for any live steamer that could handle the tight radius.  I still had an old LGB track planning template, so I drew up the flowerbox to scale and used the template to plan what roadbed pieces I would need.  The pvc roadbed comes in the standard LGB sectional track sizes, so that made planning easy.  The small loop only has a circumference of about 24 feet, so cost of the investment for the roadbed was well within my comfort zone per foot.

Visually, I wanted a smaller railhead profile, and decided to go with Sunset Valley track to secure to the pvc roadbed.  With six foot lengths of code 250 brass rail I could ensure that the rail joiners straddled a roadbed connection rather than both being aligned.  This was important to me because no matter how deep I thought I could place the pvc support pipe into the flower bed to avoid the potential for frost heave, I knew from local experience that by straddling the rail across the roadbed connections would also provide a smoother transition.