Re: What is RGS Bridge 1A? - Answer here.

Well, if'n people ARE interested, sure, I'll post something from time to time. It is narrow-narrow gauge.

I find that I am more short of time than money sometimes, except when it comes to the high dollar items such as a boiler or cylinders. I have to just discpline myself to save for it - which is hard when I need to buy $200 worth or lumber or a $1000 henhouse. Besides, I don't have to drive anywhere to go to work on it other than to buy more wood or parts and that saves gas.

My wife works weekend nights and she usually is in bed Saturday and Sunday afternoons. So instead of using the chain saw (which probably would land me in hot water) I work on the railroad. And some weekday evenings I have time to do some digging, cut, preserve and plate up ties, build switches or whatever. If I have a trailer load of rock available and a large bundle of ties ready to go, I can get 30 to 50 feet track laid in a weekend. But that assumes the grade is ready as well... And I am willing to kneel down for that long.

I build my track in place. I don't think panels work well and waste rail. So what I do is prepare the subroad bed, lay down landscape fabric and 2" of ballast minimum. Then I prebend the rails (aluminum) and connect it with the Train Mountain Sprall rail joiner (looks like a large model railroad rail joiner.) All the ties have the plates pre-gauged with the screws on the side facing me so I can slide them under and add 2 more screws and tighten them down. Take about 1 minute per tie - roughly. Then I come back with buckets of ballast and a small shovel and tamp. I usually wait until we get a couple heavy rains and will go back and retamp. Then I finally profile the ballast. And my train is on the board as a work train flying white flags! (Of course ALL my trains need white flags.) I'm also hunting down large rocks to build retaining walls too. I need to put the track farther over into the hill to reduce the need for this but I also need sizable ditches to funnel the rain water away from the tracks.

I am also using what has been dubbed by some North carolinians as "Colorado Culverts." It's nothing more than a gap between ties to allow for drainage. I will use either a couple 2 by 4s or 2 by 6s on edge. Sometimes I'll build a box, other times it's just a gap. iT'S Just a place to allow water to flow through. Why not pipes? Because it is wooded and as you can see in the photos, the ditches quickly are filled with debris and would plug up pipes quicker than the culverts. And it's really easy to clean them out - a leaf blower cleans all the ditch and culverts right out. We'll see how well that works over the next few years. I might end up changing them later if I find they don't work. I haven't been down there during any torrential rain storm yet. But so far - no problems! Maybe this weekend that storm off the Atlantic will come on over and help out there. Well... we do need some rain. Badly.

Other than an occasional visitor (my dad or niece) I have done all this work myself over the past 6 months. Now I'm looking for ways to do it easier - hince - the bridge to be built now. Save my poor back!

I should pose a bunch of chickens in an open gondola all wearing ball caps and holding cameras. A drumhead on the back with something like "Chickenball Express." Oh the fun, er, trouble I can get into. Maybe I need to use squirrels. Have a BUNCH of them too.