Replaced elevated track using an innovative method.

[Bruce_L]

A couple of things I ought to add:
The part I'm working on at the moment, - is building a semi-circle to complete an oval, This is, of course, not an innovative method of building off the ground trackbeds, having seen other member's methods. The part I thought to be innovative was the use of long ladders to easily build long straight trackbeds. Hope that has got anyone else to try it!

The other thing is to explain the hope i have to finish the semi-circle to produce an oval. The end of garden I need to fit in the semicircle has only a width of 20 ft. I would have to move the house to provide a wider area! So I'm stuck with it. On top of that, to get ovals, with track running each way I have to recognise that both two tracks make the radiuses can't have 20ft. So I have had to use tracks that will have 8' radius will be in the middle of the two tracks. The outer will be a bit more and the inside one will have to be a little less. This is a shame, but could not see any way out of this (apart from moving house again!). Anyway, all the points on the layout are already 8' radius so I am hoping stock will manage round this size. Passing coaches on the semicircle will be the biggest problem, so the 6way will have to be large enough space. Fortunately, I have mainly bogie stock so I hope at least my stock will run OK. Large steam locos are likely to be unhappy with my track, but there we are.

My thought that I would finish this track last October got nowhere!

But the build now is getting close to completion. All the supports are in, all connected, with some trackbed and ballast felt already laid. Hopefully at least one track will be running in a few weeks.

Mor pictures to come.
Bruce.

[Bruce_L]

Picture shows the station throat. The station will be straight ahead, the two oval tracks run off to the left to go round the semicircle (when it's finished!).

[Bruce_L]

About half the semicircle build is done now, with ply trackbed and roofing felt in place. I'll have to make yet another visit to one or two diy traders to acquire more wood for the remaining sections. It's amazing how fast you can use up lumps of wood!
A further picture shows the finished part, which is extending the end of the long straight along the side of the house.

[Bruce_L]

More pics...

[richardgreen]

That's quite a good length of run that you have there, certainly enough for an engine to stretch its legs , or rather it's wheels! I'm sure it's going to be worth all that effort in its construction to get a really good layout together.


Rich.

[Bruce_L]

View across the station

[Peaky 556]

Looks nice Bruce, a continuous circuit with a terminus station off.  It does look to be a pretty tight radius to close that gap though.  Are you planning to use some radius templates to get around the curve smoothly without ""kinks" at the rail joints?

[Bruce_L]

There's been a delay with the forum, but see if I can catch up. The last panel has been fitted so with some work I can laying track soon.

[Bruce_L]

The last panel shown in the last picture sorts out the far corner such that the curves there will be reasonable.

I have been spending a lot of time to lay track with sufficient gap between the two curves. The centres average 9-1/2" and the average radius is around 8'with the centre between the two tracks as expected. Remember the space I had was only 20'across including spaces between track and each sides too. It looks very good though and tests with my bogie locos eat it up! Runs with poor GRS 0-6-0 locos are different. I had to adjust some of the curves to cope with the un-sprung wheels but there are still some places where any sort of high speed results in coming off. Anything larger than 0-6-0 locos are likely to have the same problem.
It's a shame, but I have used most of the garden that is practical (and Allowed!!). To run things I will stick to bogie locos and rolling stock, short wagons, and no long wheelbase stock. I have a number of types which should be OK, although I haven't tested them all yet.

Following more improving I should be able to have some other folks' rolling stock on occasion.

[Bruce_L]

Trying to load some pictures. Seems to be having problems with this.

[Bruce_L]

Try another one.