Replacing the track bed on a garden railway

[Tony Bird]

Rhydypenau Garden Railway. New track bed construction.

Hi,

After about 10 years the plywood used in the construction of the Rhydypenau Garden Railway had started to delaminate. The track bed that was permanently in place had been constructed using 18mm good quality exterior plywood with a mineral felt surface held in place with mastic, this mineral felt folded over the edges of the plywood it being held in place with a plastic strip. The removable still in good sections of the track was of a similar construction using 9mm plywood with wooden batons supporting the edges; folding legs being fitted for when these sections were stored during the winter.

The reason that the permanent sections of the track bed had deteriorated was twofold; it was always subjected to the weather and secondly it was in a position out of direct sun light so was almost permanently damp.

It was decided that the replacement track bed would be of a different construction partly in the hope that it would last longer but mostly to make handling the new sections easier during construction. In the ten years since the original track bed had been constructed with advancing years working on heavy sheets of plywood was becoming more difficult.

The proposed track bed construction used was a variation on the system used on the Cardiff Model Engineering Society garden railway; using the same size 4.8 metre 38mm x 19mm treated batons which cost £2.25 plus VAT each for everything. Also a box of 2000 40mm screws was bought for £19.50 plus VAT. This along with a tin of wood preservative was all that was needed for the track bed construction; anything else needed being salvaged from the old track bed.

The resulting track bed is perhaps not as attractive as the old; but it has a lot of advantages in its design and construction; also the cost of the materials is somewhat less. Progress so far can be seen on the following three videos.

Part 1. Can be viewed at:

Part 2. Can be viewed at:

Part 3. Can be viewed at:

I hope they are found interesting.

Take care Tony.