North Pacific Coast Garden Railroad
Construction Techniques
This page discusses general construction techniques to be used in developing
the railroad. The site on which the railroad is to be located was mostly
grass prior to construction. Once the patio, staircase, plumbing, and
electrical lines were in place, construction began on the railroad itself.
Sod Removal
There is a very significant amount of sod to be removed in constructing the
railroad. And to prevent weed problems, sod was not removed in areas any
more significant than necessary. The phase of construction was greatly
reduced by purchasing a Kick Sod Cutter.
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This tool is made by a little guy doing business under the name
Quail Manufacturing
in Ramsey, Minnesota. I bought it at their Web site special price
of $255 plus about $25 for shipping. Its' curved blade cuts sod
about 1 1/2 inches deep and 12" wide. You hold the cutter by the
handle and kick the high green cross bar with your foot. I can do
100 square feet including loading sod in the wheel barrow and hauling it
away in about an hour. And I can do as much or as little as I want
in a moment's notice. The sod cutter works better for me with the
handles installed upside down. I'm 6 feet tall. Try bending
over and kicking at the same time and you'll understand why I bashed
this kit. |
My general technique was to remove the sod, cover the bare dirt with
landscape fabric then spread hardwood mulch over the fabric to 'hold' the area,
preventing weeds from growing. When I was ready to work on the area, I
scraped off the mulch and removed the fabric.
Road Bed Approach
I decided to lay a concrete road bed using techniques developed by Marty
Codaz and published at the MyLargeScale.com Web Site. Here's a link to the
article discussing this technique.
http://www.mylargescale.com/articles/articles/concreteroadbed/roadbed01.asp
Road Bed Grading
One of my greatest challenges is that the majority of my railroad will be
located on a hill that loses 10' of elevation over about 75'. My track
specifications call for no more than a 5% grade.
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The track will need to wind back and forth across the hill to keep
the grade at 5% or less. I needed a very long flexible ruler.
Fortunately, precision wasn't an issue. I merely needed to know
track distances in 10' increments so I could measure the vertical drop
over that distance. With a 5% grade, 10' (120") of track could
drop vertically 6". My garden hose came to the rescue once I had
marked off 10' sections with electrical tape. I'll lay the level
on the board and measure the drop between any two points 10' apart on my
hose scale. |
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I needed an elevation starting point. My sod
cutter (against wall to left of trench) earned its keep by taking off
12" wide by 1" thick slices of dirt. At this point the trench is
about 2" lower in elevation than the lower window sill inside the
culvert leading to Sausalito. This is about right as the concrete
road bed will be 2" thick bringing the bottom of the track level with
the sill.
The trench gets progressively deeper as it approaches the house as
the land slopes away from the house in the direction of the
photographers feet in this photo.
You can see that the mulch and landscape fabric has been moved out of
the way of the trench. |
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