Up Shiltz Creek in G-Scale Land - 05-27-13

(Blog Entry by Bob)

Last year I put in a creek in behind the brewery.  We purchased a solar powered pump to fill the creek with water but we soon discovered that a lot of the water in the creek went missing.  Knowing the rubber liner was flawless we considered evaporation.  But digging around the lower creek I discovered to true culprit - the soil decorated the creek bottom was lifting the water out.  I dug out the rubber lining, cleaned out the dirt and re-dug the bottom down an inch below the edge of pond to insure there would always be water in the lower creek.  The whole project was complete before the end of the first weekend.

For the upper creek I decided to use a large electric pump with a 3/4" hose to feed a waterfall 25 feet away. The water would return though the culvert under the train tracks continuing through rapids to feed the lower creek and eventually back to the pond.  A dedicated GFI receptacle and timer circuit were wired up to feed the 120 volt extension cord hidden underneath the brewery.
Creating the upper creek was a lot harder than the lower creek and took me an addition three weeks to get it working the way I wanted.  The rocks I choose to use were around up to 50 lbs each.  Problems with the powerful pump throwing water out the creek and lower edges of the rubber sheets made lifting the rocks out and reposition a back-breaking and re-occurring task. With a pump that could easily empty the pond within 15 minutes I had to make sure everything was perfect.  The train track had to be pulled up and hoses and extension cords had to be buried and everything re-leveled .  Using a plastic ruler in the pond to measure the height of water I was able to run the pump continuously for six hours with only 1 mm of water loss.

The troll under the bridge does not like being disturbed in G-Scale Land 05-20-13

(Blog Entry from Bob)

When the train bridge valley was cut, the earth was levelled perfectly to allow the train track a smooth transition.  Winter after winter, rainstorm after rainstorm, the steep walls of the valley began to erode and it wasn't until a train derailment (and a full crash investigation was lanched) that I noticed the the bridges had sunk an inch and there was half a foot of track dangling in the open air appoaching and departing the bridge.

Using pictures of  retaining wall cribbing, old cedar fence boards were cut into 3/4 x 3/4 x 12" strips. Creating a 4 x 4 grid, the strips were nailed with 3" nails which were staggered changing positions each course to ensure overlap of connection.  The resulting cribbing stacks for the plactic arch bridge became 16" high.  With a square shovel the dirt was removed at the bridge abutments locations and stored in a plastic bin. A long 2X4 was rested on the rail ballast on either side of the valley and the cribbing was adjusted to the correct height.  With the plastic arch bridge being so delicate a wood frame replica representing it's length and height was created so it could be inserted and removed from the abutment gap to check spacing. The removed dirt was placed back into the cris-cross of the cribbing and was packed with the end of a small post every couple of inches.  

With the bridges levelled, supported and secured the old troll under the bridge shouldn't be disturbed again for a long long time.