I have been doing quite a bit of reading on Garden Railways sence my last post. Found out I know very little about the hobby, but I am learning (maybe). I made a rough drawing of the railyard and mainline. As for the Cat manufacturing plant no headway on it. I found out that there is a plant about 40 miles from my home, going to go take a look at it before I do the layout on it.
I would like to try to make my crossties but can’t find any information on size for 1gauge track. Searched this site and the internet with no luck. Can someone point me in the right direction? Guess I could scale them down if I knew the dimension of actual ties. Some info on tie plates would be helpful also.
Real ties range from 1 foot cubes to a 12x18in rectangle to 3 foot cubes. They also range from 8 to 12 feet in lenth and longer in switches and crossovers. I think some nice squarestock will work.
Set your table saw rip fence to 5/8 inch or 11/16 and start slicing. That should do fine unless you are a rivet counter. In the garden scales run from 1:22 to 1:29, and a WHOLE BUNCH more!!! Half inch square stock (or slightly larger) should go well with whatever equipment you are going to run.
A “standard” railroad tie is 7" deep, 9" wide, and 8’ 6" long for standard gauge. In 1:29 or 1/32 (the two common scales for modeling standard gauge trains), that’s about 1/4" by 5/16" by 3.5" long. If you’re doing narrow gauge, the ties varied a bit in size, but usually right around the same width and depth give or take an inch. The length was shorter, usually around 6’ 6" or 7’. In 1:20 (the common scale for modeling 3’ narrow gauge) that’s just over 5/16" by 7/16 by 4.2" long. Personally, I’d cut the ties deeper than prototypical, so they hold the spikes better and last longer. I’d be tempted to go 1/2" deep on them. Once they’re buried in the ballast, you’ll never see the added depth. One fellow years ago cut his ties 2" deep! The depth of the ties really held the track in place!
The gauge–regardless of scale–is 45mm, or just a pinch over 1 3/4".
If you’re looking to hand-lay your track, I’d suggest either good-quality redwood (heartwood with a nice, tight grain) or cedar. Both woods can usually be found at the average lumber yard, but the really good quality stuff may be harder to come by. Garden Railways ran an article a while back (probably 10 years or so ago) on hand-laying track. I don’t know if that article is still available, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
You can get tie plates for your track. I know Micro Engineering makes some, though there may be others as well. I don’t know what they cost, but visually they look pretty cool under the rails (assuming your particular prototype used them. Many narrow gauge lines did not).
Good luck. Hand-laying track is a tedious process, but the aesthetic rewards are hard to beat. I’d have hand-laid my track, but life’s circumstances dictated otherwise if I ever wanted to actually see trains running on the railroad.
Consider yourself fortunate that you will be using the US style of track laying!!! Here in the UK we have slightly different methods due to the fact that our track system is different.
I will admit to not being quite sure as to what you mean by “T” and “Y” sleepers? The std british and colonial sleeper was a wood billet, although some African colonial railways (eg Rhodesia Rail) did use a pressed steel folded sleeper with chairs that bolted on. This was to prevent termites eating them!!! The rail section that I am using is “bullhead” and was originally designed with two running faces, so inorder to renew the track, the gangers knocked out the wedges and turned the rail over…
Somewhere in europe there they use ties that are concrete and split on one side to form a Y shape and another type that splits on one end to make a T shape.
Ah! I see what you mean. This is a steel sleeper used for urban trams -note the “Panderol” clips at the chairs. these are cast into the concrete sub bed of the tram way and have to take pounding from motor vehicles as well as trams. Axle loadings in the EU for road vehicles are 50 tonnes -very few trams have that!!!
Ever Crawled under a low tressal, so you know there usually built light. The one that I know of that has those ties is in a coastel inlet not far from Washington’s border with Oregon and it was to help the damm thing sink down to something stable, still hassent finished settled yet. Was part of a logging line out there.
