We finally threw in the towel! Using wood stringers as a roadbed is just not working out. It’s been one thing after another using wood. The first setback was rot. We finally found the answer to that, but the next thing was keeping the track fastened to the stringer – with a couple puppies constantly pounding on it. Even adding screws every 8″ didn’t help! We now have track with much larger holes in the ties where the screw heads pulled through them.

Fast forward. We’ve added yet another puppy to the team, Jasper. Alright, three full sized German Shepherds! None of them are little puppies anymore. We were barely keeping ahead of things with two puppies pounding the track into the ground. But now we’re fighting a losing battle with three, we’ve been removing track, not adding it. And that’s moving in the wrong direction!

Concrete roadbed should certainly hold up to the constant pounding, if sidewalks and driveways are any indication that is… Beyond that, the idea is to shape the concrete with a center depression, a “well” of sorts, that will “cradle” the track. The question now is how deep of a well and how to screed and shape the concrete. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Choices

There are two choices that must be made. The first is whether to make the well as deep as the track and the ties are tall or only as deep as the ties. The second is whether to form the roadbed then screed the well into the freshly poured concrete or cast “bricks” that can be placed independently once cured. At the bottom center of the above diagram is the deep well profile “screed tool”, with the “only ties deep” version to the right of it. Above them are the “bricks”, along with some dimensions. That particular set is designed for 20′ diameter curves.

Let’s start with a continuous formed pour with a full depth well. Had we known how much work… Well, the work to “trench” out where either the forms or the bricks will sit is a wash, but the forms themselves take days to “perfect”. Essentially we want the track to be about flush with the terrain. That requires a thickness of at least 1½”, with roughly a ¾” deep well down the middle. It may not be readily apparent, but the profile we’re shooting for has a taper at the top, away from the well, to simulate a prototypical ballast profile.

Getting Started

But before all that, we need to cut out a stripe in the artificial turf roughly 6″ wide that follows the path of the existing wood stringer first. The Dremel saw with a plastic “blade” makes fairly quick work of that task. The before and after shots show the recent relocation of the lower loop track, sitting atop the turf, and the new path awaiting installation of the forms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see a start of staking out the forms using the 2×6 roadbed pieces we used to “elevate” the new middle loop track up off the deck. These are a perfect fit for spacing apart the ¼” thick x 1½” tall slats we’re using, attached to 8″ stakes “strategically” driven into the ground. This is just a test fit of sorts. The track is roughly at the desired height, but the forms need to be installed lower such that the top of the rails is even with the tops of the forms, a difference of ¾”.

After filling a yard cart with the dirt removed along the 10′ stretch we’re pouring concrete into, the real work of installing the forms begins. It’s taken a day’s work to get this far. It takes another day just to get all the stakes driven in the ground and the slats bent into shape. And yet another day to attach the slats to the stakes! It’s all adding up… Three days for every ten feet of roadbed means it’s going to take forever to replace the exiting wooden roadbed.

Regardless of the time spent getting here, we’re finally ready to pour concrete, starting with mixing. The directions call for 3 quarts of water for the entire 80# bag. Despite using one of the measuring buckets to dispense three quarts exactly, the mix is too dry. Adding another quart results in a mix that’s still too dry. Not quite another quart and now the mix seems too wet. At this point, I’m winded from all the mixing by hand using the shovel. It doesn’t help that I’m using the small mixing tub, which is obviously meant for 60# and not 80#.

After shoveling about three feet or so into the forms, I try to screed the profile using the 3D printed tools, but they’re just not working. It seems the tools would have been better designed like trowels to better float the profile into the pour. The tools are crudely scraping the profile more than smoothly forming it. Even working the tool back and forth like a simple screed board doesn’t seem to do much better.

So far this seems like a losing battle. By the time the entire ten foot length is poured, the only thing that worked as planned was the amount of concrete needed. I’m more than a bit discouraged by the outcome, but way to exhausted to do anything more than cover the fresh concrete to keep the pups out of it. We’ll see how it turns out tomorrow when we can remove the forms.

The picture tells the story. It’s obvious that the profile we were looking for did not materialize. It’s a crude approximation at best. Thankfully the track does fit in the well, but not very well. The sides that are supposed to protect the track and hold it in position are crumbling at the slightest touch. Removing the forms breaks large chunks of the sides loose. Not a good first impression to say the least. By now the meaning of trial version is apparent…

Stay tuned for more updates. A change in plans is definitely called for though.