Hand Laid Track Photos
Hand Laid Track Photos
|
HOME |
These images are expandable! You may view them double size in Netscape by right clicking on them then selecting "view image". Use the "back" button to return to this page.
All the track on Scott Gibb's Dumont Express Lines is hand laid and most of it is on baseboard. Here we see the baseboard, the ties and the rails (except for the tops of the rail heads) stained black and ready for the ballast to be applied. The baseboard extends through the bridge, which will also be ballasted, but not across the trestle where a see-through look is important. Much of Scott's baseboard is supported by 2x4's on edge with the 2x4's in turn stabilized or supported by driven stakes. This was done mostly in areas of uncompacted fill as a way of preventing the railroad from settling along with the fill.
Even people who swear by baseboards will occasionally build some track without them as this see-through track atop a trestle on Scott Gibb's Dumont Express Lines shows. Here the track is basically laid on ties held together by slats, except in this case, the slats are the deck timbers of a trestle.
Code 250 aluminum rail hand laid on 3/8'' wide by 3-1/2" long ties nailled to 3/4" pressure treated plywood baseboard. This track had been down about 8 years when this photo was taken. The black enamel paint used to stain the rails and ties has weathered off the rails, but is still evident on the cedar ties. The crushed granite ballast is applied loose and some is lost every year, requiring replacement. Loss on this particular stretch of track is minimized by plastic lawn edging screwed to both sides of the baseboard. This and most of the rest of the track on Jim Banner's Virginia Creek Railway was laid right on the garden soil which was reasonably well compacted at the time. It has never had to be re-levelled since.
|
Don
Dymond photo
Don
Dymond photo
Jim Banner photo