Started to conceive it in 1997, house was finished in April and we started the backyard that summer.

Planning Stage

Looked for an area in the yard where the railroad would have good exposure from anywhere in the house and outside. Read anything I could find on garden railroading. My goal was for the railroad to look like it belonged in the garden but not to be the main focal point of my garden. I like the era of the streamliner so I wanted mountains, tunnels, bridges and a small country town.

Construction Stage

First, I cleared the area where the railroad would be, this area is about 80’ X 25’ a large area of this is underneath pine trees so I cleared off the bottom branches of the trees for head room. My thought was that the trees would provide protection for the town area. Later I would find it meant a constant clean up job of needles.

I then planned the railroad on a computer , I wanted it to have grades and curves. From the reading I did, I learned the wider the curves the better, I didn’t know how to bend rail , so I chose a diameter that I could purchase which was 20’ Aristocraft. Once I designed it on the computer , I transferred the design to the area I had cleared ,marking it out on the ground, using a fluorescent spray paint can.

I then looked for the cheapest rock I could purchase, as it turns out we have a large amount of limestone in the area so I was able to buy it by the dump truck load at a low cost. The initial garden area took 2 dump truck loads of rock ,and , 1 dump truck load of limestone screenings for the patio area and the track bedding.

I decided to make mountain areas on both ends of the railroad. On one end, it would be the railroad cutting through a mountain, on the other end the railroad would travel up a mountain. So, I dug the trench on the one end and made the box out of wood ,on the other end, I did the same for the grade and layout of the tracks. Then I would build the mountain around the wood structure out of rocks. 1 more dump truck load! Being an HO scale modeller, I was not used to the big difference in scale. I thought building a mountain would take about a month, wrong! It took me 4 months and 70 bags of cement to construct!

So, the first summer I cleared the area for the railroad, painted the layout on the ground then graded and built the mountain area from wood. I then ordered the track mostly Aristocraft and some LGB. I dug the trench for the limestone screenings about 6’ at a time, then pounded down the screenings with a piece of 4”x 4”, laid the track and then levelled it with more screenings using a small level and a dust brush to sweep the excess off. This took a couple of weeks.