| Fall, 2000: Another Design Change and a New Line - I kept working on the raised area that would become the "north loop," the part of the railroad that would allow trains to leave the pond area and return. I wasn't sure I wanted to have another huge raised area, but my carpentry skills were so bad, I wasn't sure I could make a nice elevated loop without wasting an lot of wood and time and still having it come out looking stupid. I decided to compromise. The "back" of the loop would use "rock garden" techniques just as the rest of the railroad had, but the front would use "post and stringer" construction (basically fence-posts with 2x6s laid across them, a very popular construction technique in this area. To build up the transition area, the extreme northern edge of the railroad, I used those trapezoid shaped retaining wall blocks to make a curve that matched the curve in my track. As I laid each layer, I laid limestone rocks inside and outside of the layer to camouflage it, and backfilled with topsoil. Then I stuck Acre sedum and other plants in all the cracks to let them fill in and make things look established. The final effect is that of a curved rock wall that quite fits the overall look of my railroad. |  |
| About the same time, a Garden Railways magazine article got me thinking about adding another loop to make the railroad more interesting. In I have never been attracted by the Lionel demonstration layouts with fifty trains operating on a thirty-square-foot table. But the article got me thinking. Why not have a short line or a trolly line operating in some corner just to add interest? Since I had already moved a great deal of dirt and rocks that I didn't want to move again, the was only one good place to do so. I wouldn't be able to use 10'-diameter track, but I could choose equipment that wouldn't look too stupid on 5'-diameter curves. |  |
| The dirt in that part of the yard was hard-packed clay that had been largely undisturbed since WWII, and I couldn't to raise the roadbed too much for fear it would interfere with the future upper loop. So why not lay ballast right on the hardpan and use that for the "roadbed"? I fastened the Aristo track together in several combinations (which is often the easiest way to design a track plan around existing obstructions). The final combination had 10'-diameter curve pieces acting as easements into the 5'-diameter curves, and only one shallow S curve. I dumped a few bags' worth of crushed gravel chicken grit on top of the track. Then, shaking the track horizontally, I brought it up through the grit until the "ballast" was level with the top of the ties. Then I dusted off the track, wired it up, and ran trains. Too bad all garden railway construction isn't this easy. Of course maintaining a ground-level railroad and the accompanying scenery isn't as easy on the back as maintaining the raised portions. Eventually I added a connecting line to connect the upper and lower track, at something like a four percent grade. Frankly, I seldom use that line since I generally have shortie stuff on the ground-level line and long stuff on the upper line anyhow. But I could if I wanted to. |  |
| 2001: Building Buildings and Stuff - I worked out of town most of 2001, so I barely had time to keep the grass mowed, much less keep up with the garden railroad. However, I did get my "fence posts" for the upper loop started, and I visited other garden railroads in the area and try to learn from them. At the railroad of Wil Davis, a Dayton-area garden railroader, I saw visitors spending as much time looking at all the human and "period" detail of Wil's railroad as they did at the train. Wil had set up "scenes" where you could figure out what was going on, and otherwise creatively used figures, accessories, signage, and buildings to tell a "story" as well as giving the trains something to run past. So in my little bit of spare time, I finished and refinished some buildings and other accessories so I'd have something to set out the next time I had people over. |  |
However, we didn't have people over to see the railroad much that year for two reasons. First, I was just out of town too much. Second, branches from an adjacent property kept falling on my railroad and smashing things up. In fact, I finally got so tired of gluing things back together that I brought everything in about mid-summer.
In the fall of 2001, I did start cutting lumber and planning to finish the elevated north loop in time for the National Garden Railroad Convention, which was to be in Cincinnati in June of 2002.
| March, 2002: A Big Mess That Wasn't My Fault for a Change - In two separate storms in March, the north end, then the south end of the railroad were buried by huge branches from the dead and dying trees on an adjacent property. Some of the branches were over thirty feet long and ten to twelve inches in diameter. Track was smashed apart and thrown about, retaining walls were knocked down, lawn furniture was demolished, a fence was flattened, and miniature trees I had been trimming and encouraging for four years were uprooted or broken down. Miraculously the pond was not punctured - the branches that fell on that end of the railroad mostly landed sideways. It was not exactly the high point in my career as a garden railroader, though. To say nothing of what it did to my plans for the June open house or my relationship with the trees' owner.
I have a whole page about that incident by itself, if you want to learn more:
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