trackbed in yards?

[jon price]

On a "normal" stretch of track the trackbed is usually raised, so there are quite a few available sources for the foundation material. On this layout almost the entire track is at ground level, with the ground surface flush with the top of the sleepers. The ballast is a combination of ash and gravel as far as I can tell. Clearly I will still need a trackbed base layer, and a further layer to bring the ground vlevel to the top of the sleepers. Can anyone with experience of laying this kind of thing, tell me what they used?

[Winander]

Hi Jon,

From previous posts, your baseboards are plywood. The usual thing to put under track is cork, it may help if you can tell us what type of track you will be using, to get sleeper thickness, and what finish is required e.g. setts/cobbles would require something fairly flat.

One suggestion I have seen is the display boards used in supermarkets/diy sheds.

b.t.w. if you search on 'cork underlay' you will find a lot of discussion about how to glue it down.

regards

[jon price]

The track is Exactoscale so the sleepers are 1.5mm. The ground surface is exactly that, no concrete, no sets, no cobbles, just muddy packed earth, with maybe ash or clinker or brickbats added whereit gets too soft or wet. I'll be adding puddles and ruts as well. I was considering cork sheet, but wondered if there was anything better. I would either have to put cork under the track, then run something else with a thickness of cork sheet +1.5mm up to the ballast, or cover the whole board in cork and add something 1.5mm thick outside the track.

[jim s-w]

Clearly I will still need a trackbed base layer

Why?

[Noel]

The ground surface is exactly that, no concrete, no sets, no cobbles, just muddy packed earth, with maybe ash or clinker or brickbats added whereit gets too soft or wet. I'll be adding puddles and ruts as well.

A yard to which non-railway road vehicles of any sort had access would normally have had some form of hard surface for the vehicles. A busy yard would get completely snarled up if vehicles [or their horses] got bogged in bad weather; not good for business, as the customers would complain, demand compensation, and go elsewhere. Even in yards, the track itself would generally have sufficient foundations to provide some sort of drainage, even after years of neglect. Goods yards and shunting or storage yards would have a sufficiently weatherproof surface between tracks to enable staff to move around both fairly easily and safely. Poor surfaces and staff working on the ground around moving rolling stock are a dangerous combination. The only times I have seen the sort of situation you describe is where BR vehicles have been using areas where track had been lifted.

Noel

[jon price]

Although Noels comments are generally correct the situation at Connah's Quay in 1906 was far from ideal, and the Great Central report on takeover suggests that each time the inspectors visited the site more tracks had been laid. Whilst this is probably an exageration it does suggest that this was not a well constructed field.. The surface between the tracks is covered with puddles, except on the wooden deck of the riverside wharf. There is no evidence of cobbles or sets, the only stone surfaces being at the edge of the docks. The road which crosses the line at the field entrance appears to be macadamed but not asphalted or metalled. This surface appears similar to the rest of the field, which is why I think it is an ash/cinder/brickbat surface.

A photograph shows a lamppost standing on a concrete base surrounded by a scattering of debris and broken bricks; and spare rails, barrels and piles of timber are placed haphazardly across the field. There doesn't appear to be road access into the field, although there is a small trans-shipment goods shed which might have this at the back. The quayside was chiefly used for trans-shipment from railway to ship and vice versa and no non-railway traffic in the form of wagons or lorries appears in any of the photos I have seen so far.

[grovenor-2685]

A yard to which non-railway road vehicles of any sort had access would normally have had some form of hard surface for the vehicles.

depends, perhaps what you mean by hard surface. My local goods yard where I used to watch a lot of shunting only had a cobbled area adjacent to the goods shed and where tracks had to be crossed to get from the entrance gate to the goods shed area. The remainder of the roadways alongside the coal sidings were just ash and coal dust, well compacted of course. I would assume the whole yard area would have been graded and compacted as a formation, whether there was any stone ballast applied or just the ash it was not possible to tell, but I would suspect the latter. The roadways were not boggy however, the compacted ash was effectively a hard surface and fairly free draining so puddles were shallow and short lived. Many photos of goods yards appear to show similar setups.

Personally I would put a cork sheet and build on that, perhaps just habit! You can follow Jim and just put the track down on the ply if you like, nothing is going to be rushing up and down the sidings making noise is it.
Keith

[Tim V]

I thought the question was going to be about how long it was?

[jon price]

Tim

the answer is of course 42

Keith

This sounds like what I am after. Obviously the photos were taken after heavy rain, but then I could model that situation.

[Tim V]

ah 6 x 9 (in base 13)!

[allanferguson]

The last time I did this sort of thing I made a fairly liquid mix of pollyfilla, powder paint, and water, and sloshed it on with a 2" brush. The trackwork got cleaned up later. I'm glad John is recognising that yards etc were very different from main lines -- a pet irritation is goods yards or loco sheds with immaculate mainline track.

Allan F

[Terry Bendall]

You can get some idea of what we did on Elcot Road here http://www.scalefour.org/scaleforum/201 ... _7627.html Some of the other pictures show part of the yard as well. The main surface was ash from a steam locomotive since that is darker than ash from a wood or coal fire at home - assuming that you have such a thing.

The ask was crushed up as fine as possible by wrapping in newspaper and applying a hammer. PVA glue was applied to the baseboard and the ash sprinkled down through a home made fine mesh sieve. The advantage is that it can be built up in layers as needed. The final layer was rubbed over with the finger tips to smooth things off and no paint was applied - just left nature colour.

Terry Bendall

[jon price]

I just have to find a steam engine then Terry. Presumably the ash colour relates to the fuel unless you have a wood fired loco. This is not a sarky question, but why is one side of the track pink?

[Winander]

Even in yards, the track itself would generally have sufficient foundations to provide some sort of drainage, even after years of neglect.

Assuming the quay opened when the Buckley Rly started operating, this was 1862 and perhaps nothing other than essential maintenance had been undertaken up to 1906. Photographs show even main line track ballasted up to the underside of the rail (and contemporary books document this) in the mid - late 19th century, so I'd say the efficacy of drainage had not been discovered when the quay track was laid.

The quayside was chiefly used for trans-shipment from railway to ship and vice versa and no non-railway traffic in the form of wagons or lorries appears in any of the photos I have seen so far.

Wouldn't the ships require stores etc. creating a small volume of road traffic? Might make a nice feature.

regards

[Guy Rixon]

Photographs show even main line track ballasted up to the underside of the rail (and contemporary books document this) in the mid - late 19th century, so I'd say the efficacy of drainage had not been discovered when the quay track was laid.

This was called "boxing in". Some railways did it up to the early 20th century. It was supposed to protect the sleepers from decay, but was later found actually to speed up rot when the drainage was not good.

Boxed-in track doesn't necessarily imply bad drainage, it just makes it harder to detect. On the SER, and later SECR, boxing in on main lines was carried on until after 1900. One sleeper in every few - perhaps every 10th sleeper - was left exposed by a V-shaped trench between the rails. I've always presumed that these trenches were for drainage. I think the drainage trenches were present even in yards; I'll try and check that tonight when I can get to my books.

[Guy Rixon]

I sampled a few books of SECR photos and found lots of yards apparently with boxed-in track (not setts AFAICS) but none of the above-mentioned drainage channels. I only found channels in ballast in yards where there was point rodding and one odd formation at Bricklayers Arms shed that looks like a filled-in ash pit.

I couldn't see any yards obviously laid with setts except on docksides. I don't know if this is because no setts or because the setts don't show up in the photos.

[Noel]

Steam Days magazine of December 2014 includes a couple of photos of the same corner of Connah's Quay, one from circa 1950, the other slightly later, but no later than 1958, so probably showing a situation which hadn't changed much for many years. There are some small puddles, and one area between sidings which is possibly grass. Anywhere where it is reasonable to assume staff might work the surface is pretty uniform, probably compacted ash as suggested earlier. Even the road crossing appears to be the same material, levelled off between the rails just sufficiently below the rail head to allow wheel flanges to pass. Otherwise the surface is more or less level with the top of the sleepers. Having said that, there is one area which looks as though it may not be in use, as it does have a somewhat poorer surface.

Noel

[RobM]

On this layout almost the entire track is at ground level, with the ground surface flush with the top of the sleepers. The ballast is a combination of ash and gravel as far as I can tell. Clearly I will still need a trackbed base layer, and a further layer to bring the ground vlevel to the top of the sleepers. Can anyone with experience of laying this kind of thing, tell me what they used?

On Manston Brewery (Standard Gauge Workbench) cork was stuck down over the entire base, track was then laid. Working on a small section at a time PVA glue was applied then Das was thinly laid just below sleeper level, between the tracks and allowed to dry. Once all the area was complete I painted PVA glue between the sleepers and tracks and sprinkled on Carrs ash ballast. Once dry I set about unwanted 'lumps' with a scalpel (1/4 round blade) and a small file. Looking back there was no reason to use cork, the rolling stock only moves slowly and very little noise is created. For the areas where there are setts I used styrene sheet to build up to just under rail level and then stuck down my own setts.
Rob

[jon price]

Rob
Is the PVA wet when you apply the DAS, and how heavy does this make the board? I particularly like the number of barrels on your layout.

[John Palmer]

One of the problems I have found with representation of trackwork in yards is the excessive particle size of commercial ballast. As a trial, I have been adapting Gordon Gravett's technique of applying fine particle size materials to a layer of gloss paint (Humbrol No. 10 Service Brown).

cinder ballast size.jpg

The small grain material here is a mix of chinchilla dust, some mud coloured pigment from Carr's weathering powders, and some ground down cinder ballast.

In the centre foreground of the photograph I have tipped in a small pile of untreated Woodland Scenics' fine cinder ballast and, as can be seen, the size of individual particles of this are far too large for most applications.

I am not entirely satisfied with the effects produced by this treatment, not least because I found it very hard to reduce the cinder ballast shown to a more appropriate size. I've been attempting to do so using a pestle and mortar, but have found the fruit stone from which I understand this ballast is derived to be exceedingly resistant to such crushing.

This technique relies upon first gluing the track plan to the baseboard, gluing the sleepers in place, and then painting and ballasting before the chaired rails are welded to the sleepers. Here, the chairs have yet to be secured, which is why they are floating just above the sleepers.

[jon price]

I like the idea of ballasting/surfacing after gluing down the sleepers but before gluing on the chairs. I'm inclined to agree on finer particle size, though a scattering of the larger stuff might be val;id in places.

[RobM]

Rob
Is the PVA wet when you apply the DAS, and how heavy does this make the board? I particularly like the number of barrels on your layout.

Jon, the PVA is wet and keeps the Das in place as you work it. Adds very little weight as it is only 1mm (ish) thick.
Rob

[Alan Turner]

I'm up close and personal most Sundays with Yard ballast.

It looks just like the surface of DAS. Only very occasionally can you make out any "ballast" texture.

I would just use DAS, suitably coloured and distressed with a tooth brush (aka Chris Nevard - Clacott Burtell), with the inevitable pools of water here and there.

regards

Alan

[Hardwicke]

Aquarium sand (very fine almost like very fine salt), poster paint pigment, fine ash. glued with PVA on a cork base glued to the boards with solvent free contact adhesive. which gives a little and softens the sound. Sometimes I add polyfiller/ household filler to the mix if I need it deep around the track and add water to it with an eye dropper

[Hardwicke]

I know they are not quite level with the track. I might get a picture of Kirkcliffe later.

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