The Little Railroad That Grew

Pond and First Permanent Trackage

Written by Paul Race for Family Garden Trains

Summer of 1998 - A Not-So-Ill Wind - A month or two after I put the temporary track in the side yard, winds blew down two trees on our property about thirty feet away. They were also near the edge of the property. They had been bushy, and that area had been so overgrown, that it had been useless for anything. Clearing the mess away took weeks. But once it was gone, counting the place I had the temporary loop, there was a 60' by 12' open area of the yard we'd never used for anything else just waiting to be turned into something.

In the meantime, the city of Springfield, Ohio was tearing up its old Main Street to replace sewer lines. They ripping out old paving stones and trolley ties as they went. After asking permission to haul the stuff away, I soon had a stack of supplies in the yard. We had also accumulated a nice stack of limestone rocks and boulders from various places around the yard where previous owners had build sheds or laid flower beds.

I decided to start construction near the southern end of the open space. There, the land dropped several inches as it approached the fenceline. So to raise the railroad an average of eighteen inches from the ground, I would need to add about 12" of height in the "front" (toward the center of the yard) and about 24" in the back (toward the fence). Rock gardening is a family tradition, so I decided to use the old railroad ties in the "back" and build a terraced "rock garden" in the front. But first, the pond had to go into the ground.

In the meantime, Shelia had seen a pond in Michigan that she thought was very attractive, surrounded by hostas. I didn't really want hostas next to my trains, but we determined a row of hostas just back from the pond would meet both of our expectations.

Starting with a Hole in the Ground - I laid the ties about where I thought they should go, leaving plenty of access between the ties and the fenceline. Then I positioned the pond liner a few feet inside the tie row, imagining that I would eventually have a loop of track around the pond. I left several feet between the pond and the south end of the raised garden. I needed room for Shelia's hostas, and also expected to build a tunnel later.

Digging next to the stump of a dead tree was interesting. The pond liner I had bought (a 100-gallon Marcourt "Jamaica") had a "bump out" on the bottom. Since I was going to be building up the land around the pond anyway, I decided to just dig a hole large enough to accommodate the "bump out," and leave the rest more ore less sitting at "ground level," before backfill. In retrospect, raising the pond was good because it slightly reduces the number of leaves that blow in and it eliminates the chances that herbicides from my lawn will kill my fish and plants. But it was bad because it changed the viewing angle. A person standing back from the pond (as one must from my railroad) barely sees the water lilies, much less the fish. Again, with a larger pond, and more surface area, this wouldn't have been so much of a problem.

That said, I probably couldn't have sunk the whole pond into the ground without a backhoe. As it was I had to chop and saw many large roots to get the "bump" underground. In the meantime I bought a couple trash-can's worth of sand at a gravel pit, and used that to backfill in the hole once the liner was in place. The only problem with this is that, no matter how hard you try, you'll never get the entire cavity filled, which makes voles and chipmunks very happy and consequently disruptive. After about four years, I think the ground finally settled enough to remove their neat little caves, as those vermin have been less of a problem of late.

Then came the real backfill.

Learning That Dirt is Not Dirt Cheap - Although math is not my strong suit, I calculated that 15 cubic yards of topsoil would raise the area around the pond to an average of 18" (12" in front and 24" in back). Calling around, I found topsoil could be hauled to my house in 10, 15, or 20-cubic yard trucks, for an average of $7.50 a cubic yard. I went with the middle offer. I took up the temporary loop so they could deliver the dirt and never put it back down. With a mountain of dirt for inspiration, I created an array of railroad ties along the "back" and got out the wheelbarrow. Again, I was working "virtual," so my workday allowed me to be outside when it was nice and inside working for a living after dark, so I had many more hours of useful daylight than most folks would have in my situation. As the dirt rose around the front of the pond, I started putting in rows of pavers and limestone rocks to create "terraces."

In the meantime, we were shopping for plants we could use. At the end-of-the-season sales at K-mart and other stores, we picked up a few Mugo pines and other odds and ends to try, including a start of woolly thyme.

Click for a larger version.
Early Roadbed and Planting Experience - Once I had the dirt up to the level of the pond, I used a long level and a longer 2x4 to level the dirt all around the pond. Then I put an oval of track together to figure out where the "roadbed" should go. I took the track up again to tamp and stamp where the roadbed would be. Finally, I relaid the track, poured crushed granite chicken grit all over it, then raised the track up through it, shaking horizontally as it went. The end result was a fairly stable oval of track with ballast reaching to the top of the ties. I dusted the tracks and plugged in a power pack and let a train run around the loop hundreds of times with no problems. Click for a larger version.
In the meantime, I also bought and installed a shallow "pool" that would drain into the "big" pond. I surrounded the outside with rocks hoping that it would look like something besides a plastic container surrounded by rocks. We also planned for a "creek" or waterfall that would cross the right-of-way once a tunnel was built. Lionel 0-6-0 at future site of the tunnel portal.
December, 1998 By the time I was satisfied with the placement of pond and right-of-way, and had got the rest of my end-of-season plants into the ground, it was winter. A few photographs on a bright, but "nippy" day and I was done working on the garden railroad until spring. The last thing I did was to plant some miniature tulip bulbs a gardening expert recommended to me. According to her and the package, the flowers would be red and white ("Peppermint") and no taller than 6" Pond and first trackage


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