Laying Track Outdoors - Posted to rec.models.railroad on May 16, 2007

It all started with an $8 purchase for a bunch of train stuff at a garage sale... Soon, I had a piece of track for my G-gauge locomotive as test track, and plans for a loop outside. To make a long story short, I'm skipping right to the laying track part.

Laying track for an outdoor railroad is a lot more prep work than that of an indoor layout. For an indoor layout, one merely has to attach track to a flat-ish surface and connect power. (Nitpick: Yes, quality track laying is much more difficult.) For an outdoor layout, "flat" is something that must be created. My simple loop of track required taking dirt out of the garden to level some of the worst spots, and tamping it all down.

Since things will grow in flat empty dirt, step two involves laying down a weed barrier and putting gravel on top of it. In my impatience to get trains running, I had laid track on top of the dirt and added the gravel later. I think this was a mistake. What I should have done was put the gravel down first, tamped it all down level, and then laid track. (G gauge track needs to be level side-to-side. Grades are fine, but you'll run into trouble with some equipment if it's not level side-to-side.)

If it's dry tomorrow (rained today) and I have the time, I'm looking at taking up the track, compacting the gravel underneath and leveling it side-to-side, and relaying it. It's a lot of work, but I think it's worth it.

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Note: I posted this to rec.models.railroad on May 16, 2007.
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