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The Uckfield Line


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The Uckfield Line is a 00 gauge garden railway, running mostly 1950's BR Southern steam. The railway is laid on an old Gauge 1 track bed which had to be taken up for a number of reasons. it was decided that 00 was the way to go. the line is about 80 feet in length. it is end to end in a U shape. the part of the layout that is completed is single tracked but it will all be double track with 2 terminus stations and a loop for each track in the middle when it is completed. i am using DC as most of my locos are DCC ready but not fitted as the cost of a DCC system and chipping all my locos if far to expensive at the moment but may look into it in the future though.i have decided to work on it in 3 phases as each phase will be seperated by a bridge to cross 2 sets of steps. phase 1 is complete in terms of mainline track up to the first bridge. this is where the main problem is. i have to cross a 35" gap. i want to have a realistic looking bridge, to scale. it has to hold double track and be on a slight curve. any help would be much appreciated. another problem is that phase to is on an all concrete base which is 2 foot wide so i cant put a base for the track to be pinned to so it must be glued. i have tried lots of glues and none seem to be up to the standards i want. any suggestions about glue? another question i have is about points, i have used 2 peco large radius insulated frog points. they seem to work well but i am not happy with relying on the blades for power. any suggestions on that? and, any other points more reliable than these? i will post some photos when i get round to it of the problems. some help would be much appreciated. Tom

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Regarding glue. Try Gorilla Glue. It works for me. Check out the photos on my jaybee railway. It expands so you only need a small couple of drops. You may need to scrape away the excess when dry. Once you have applied the glue under the track/on top of the concrete base you will need to weigh it down with a brick or something similar. After 30 mins or so lift the brick to ensure that it is not also sticking to the track. You can then turn the brick over and lay it down again for an hour or so. Then leave to properly dry and scape away the excess.

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i have seen your thread and looked at the glue too. looks like it will do the job, i would paint over it with some tamiya matt black as it is great colour and is meant for the underframes of rc cars so very durable. just woundered if there was any other glues to see what would give the best result. could you post a link to where i could get it? thanks.

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I got mine from an ebay trader - MK tools Ltd. I got 2x115ml bottles for £7.95.

Also also availble on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gorilla-Glue-1044400-115ml/dp/B001W030E0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1338222580&sr=8-2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also think I saw it in Tesco/Hobbycraft/B&Q/Homebase. Sorry, can't remember which.

I'd advise you to experiment with it first. You will most likely have to remove some with a knife or screw driver as it will expand and forms a foam type substance - similar to that large gap filler foam.

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thank you Jaybee. i will have to get some of that and try it out. very excited for pay day now. now we have the good weather i will have to start cracking on with the railway. got lots of track and points to buy. that can be aranged traingeeboy! ahaha

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It's definitely a good way to go - we've been using it successfully for months now. The only thing we've found is that it's a little reluctant to bond to paving block, but this may well be because they are very porous, and since you are supposed to dampen each surface before gluing, it may be drying before it can 'catch'. Every other patch of concrete seems to be perfect however, including in reasonably fresh mortar as we found out yesterday!

Echoing traingeekboy's sentiments, we need photos!! :D

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haha, i could do. the track bed is just a tad more than 1ft wide at its most narrow part. and at 80ft long, it would be nice to have 4 tracks! in the second part of the track it is just shy of 2ft wide so 4 tracks and some loops would be nice there. it will be just 2 tracks to start with but in the very far futrure, who knows, you may see 4 tracks :/

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it's nice to know you have more space. I am a little confined on my layout, but it's nothing a few screws and a long piece of lumber can't fix.

Nice locos here.

I have realized why you guys in Britain are so obsessed with water proofing. Looking at that photo I see lots of green on the fence I can only assume that that is some kind of moss eating away at the fence. We get around 17 to 20 inches of rain yearly here. it's so dry if I don't water my garden for a few days I risk killing everything.

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traingeekboy said:

I have realized why you guys in Britain are so obsessed with water proofing. Looking at that photo I see lots of green on the fence I can only assume that that is some kind of moss eating away at the fence. We get around 17 to 20 inches of rain yearly here. it's so dry if I don't water my garden for a few days I risk killing everything.

It's an algae - our weather is sufficiently damp that algae can green the surface of wood given a little dampness and a lot of sunlight!! Left untreated, the repeated soaking and drying of wood either rots it if it is a softwood or warps it if it is a hardwood (or both in some cases), both are not great for garden railways! The only way around it would be to use solid oak planks of more than two inches thick and already 'cooked' in a kiln to make them completely solid and un-warpable, but the cost of a single length of around 5 metres is about the same as 100 metres of pressure-treated decking board AND the felt to cover them. :shock:

Decking boards are designed and treated to be long lasting but they still require painting every few years to maximise their life, hence why we cover them with felt as you can't very well spray or brush on boards with tracks attached to them!

Of course it's also arguable that the felt provides a natural ballast style look to the trackbed ;)

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so its pay day tomorrow and i will be off to buy more track from the model shop so i will try and get the track extended in the first phase to double track. will try and and find some gorrilla glue to start fixing more track down. will update as soon as i can.

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doublecee lives in my old stomping ground until I moved up to Farnborough back in the mid 90's. Which part of Chi, I used to live on the what I believe to be gone now Horlix estate, not far from the hospital and the Swan Hotel on one of the roundabouts just as you left Chi heading towards Brighton on the A27.

Ian

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