[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Patio ] [ Electrical ] [ Plumbing ] [ Techniques ] [ Depot ]

North Pacific Coast Garden Railroad

Railroad Observation Area (Patio and Walkway)

The deck at the back of my house is wide, but not very deep.  I wanted to expand this area.  Rather than add to the deck itself, I chose instead to build a 16x12 foot patio at the base of my deck.  As part of the patio, I also constructed a walkway from the patio to the pond at the base of the hill in my back yard.  There were a number of reasons for the walkway.

1. The hill drops about 10' in 73' of length, a grade of 14%.  The hill can be slippery and muddy when wet.  I think a stairway to the bottom of the hill is safer.
2. I wanted a protected area to place the utility lines for the electrical and irrigation systems.  They will run along the sides of the walkway.
3. If constructed properly, the walkway could also be a seating area for watching railroad operations.
4. The main line and branch lines will cross the human path down the hill multiple times.  The walkway was an excuse to build some tunnels.  I thought it would be fun to watch trains passing below your feet.

Materials Used

In building both the patio and the walkway, I decided to use a combination of landscape timbers, patio pavers, pea gravel, sand, landscape fabric, pole barn nails, rebar, and fill dirt.  If you want to duplicate my project, here is your shopping list.

1. In my previous attempt to build this railroad, I built raised beds using landscape timbers.  I was pleased with the way they turned out.  Construction of the patio edge and stairway used nearly identical construction techniques.  When Home Depot put 8 foot 3" x 6" landscape timbers on sale for $2.50, it settled the deal.  The entire project used about 100 timbers.
2. The pavers are 16" square 2" high pavers from Menards.  Again, when they went on sale for 20% off, I hitched my trailer to my car and spent an afternoon hauling pavers.  I used 128 pavers at a price of $2.50 apiece.
3. The pea gravel I also hauled on a trailer from the near by landscape yard.  I used 1 1/2 ton of pea gravel at about $25 a ton.
4. I use lots of landscape fabric so I buy in large rolls.  Landscape fabric for this project ran about $25.
5. The landscape timbers are nailed together using 6" and 10" pole barn nails at around $12 for a box of 100.  I used 2 boxes.
6. The staircase is nailed into the ground using 10' 1/2" rebar cut into 3' 4" 'nails'.  I drilled a 1/2 a hole through two an sometimes three timbers using a foot long 1/2" bit, then used a sledge hammer to pound in my rebar nails.  The rebar came to around $50.
7. As I built the beds, I used Romex nails to nail low voltage wire to the inside of the landscape timber beds.  See the electrical section for information on installation of low voltage lighting.
8. The sand was used to level the patio prior to dropping in the pavers.  1 1/2 ton of sand from the landscape yard hauled on my trailer ran me around $40.

Building it on the Cheap Tip

I saved a lot of money on this project buying materials on sale and purchasing landscape material in large quantities.  One of the best investments I've ever made is a small utility trailer for around $250.  The hitch on my 4 cylinder Accura RSX cost me around $150 installed.  I chuckle when I see guys come into the yard with their 10-15 mpg pickups.  I haul nearly as much as they do, but my 'truck' gets 30 mpg when in normal (automobile) mode.  When I see something I want on sale, I hitch up the trailer, load it up and haul it home.  The pavers sat in a pile for a month, for example.

Landscape materials like mulch, pea gravel, dirt, and sand are literally dirt cheap if you don't have to pay delivery charges.  At my local landscape yard they use an end loader to load the materials onto my trailer at no cost other than the cost of the materials.  At the other end I have to unload - but the load is going downhill.  It can be back breaking.  But if you add up the dollars spent you'll find this whole project came in at around $750.

Construction Steps

Stripping Sod

If you've ever done this with a square shovel, you know it is back breaking.  Been there and done plenty of that.  So I started looking for an easier way.  There are gasoline powered sod strippers.  To purchase one costs well over a thousand dollars.  They can be rented, an option I considered.  But here are the disadvantages.

1. Every time you want to remove sod, you incur a rental charge.  That's OK if you have a one time project.  But in my case, sod removal will be a continuing process.
2. They are noisy, limiting the time of day they can be used.  When it is going to be hot, the best time of day to remove sod is right after sunrise when it is cool and there is dew on the grass.  But the noise could take this option out of the picture in your neighborhood.
3. There is the time lost for pick up and delivery.  You can't exactly use a gas sod cutter spontaneously.
4. If you remove a lot of sod (to justify the rental cost) you immediately have another significant project, laying down landscape fabric and mulch to control weeds on your new bare dirt.

When I was looking at gas sod cutters, I came across a tool called a kick sod cutter.

Framing the Patio

One of my challenges in this project is dealing with a site that isn't level.  As long as you have a 'level', you can deal with a slope with landscape timbers by adding or subtracting height in 3" increments (timber height).  Other than that, landscape timbers go together like Lincoln logs, except there are no notches.  Use pole barn nails instead.

Note that on the right side of the above photo is a planting box that is about 20" wide.  It runs the entire depth of the patio - 12'.  My lady loves to cook and I decided to surprise her with an herb garden.  Of course many herbs are ideal garden railroad plants.  Some of these herbs may migrate from the planter into the railroad later.

Building the Stairs

The stairs are nothing more than a series of 6" high boxes made out of landscape timber.  Each 'box' extends beyond the box above it, walking the series of boxes down the hill.

Filling the Boxes and Patio

I had no use for the sod removed for the staircase.  So I layered one or two levels of sod in the bottom of each box.  I then filled with fill dirt to within 2 to 2 1/2 inches of the top.  I didn't mention the cost of the fill dirt in my estimate.  A development is going in on two sides of my property.  In excavating sewer mains, they put a big pile of dirt on the edge of my property.  Rather than complain, I rolled my wheel barrow over and helped myself to some dirt.  If you dump it on my property without my permission, it's MY dirt.

I used a hand compactor to compact the dirt.  Then I added landscape fabric to the top of the dirt to stop weeds.  Then a shovel or two of pea gravel.  I placed the paver or pavers on the pea gravel.  Then I used pea gravel to fill around the pavers.

Leveling the patio was more of a challenge.  Some of the dirt (after sod removal was too high.  Some was way too low.  I found a second use for my sod cutter.  It takes off high points on bare dirt really well, cutting off a 12" wide strip of dirt, 1 1/2" deep.  With a square shovel, I tossed it to the low point.  The dirt leveling (remember I started with a 9" grade difference) took about an hour.

Then I brought in two 3/4 ton loads of sand and spread it on the patio.  A 10 foot 2x4 was used to scrape the sand until level.  Sorry, I forgot to take photos.  I'd scrape, compact, and rescrape.  By the end of the 4th rescrape and one last compact I had a level base.   When laying pavers, start in the middle pavers  If you plan on laying an odd number of pavers, start 8" to the left of the middle.  I forgot that step.  Fortunately I had planned to leave an eight inch pea gravel border around the pavers.  I got lucky - they just barely fit, the last with some sledge hammer persuasion applied to the landscape timber at the front left corner of the following photo.  Once the pavers were in place, I edged with pea gravel - and I was DONE.

(c) 2007 Iron Horse 1:29