The Home Machinist!

Just came across this thread, Just getting ready to put in the roadbed. I got for free 2000 tons of road millings. Im in North east PA. Yes we get all the weather here, snow sleet rain occasional sun. Putting in farm land I have 30 acres. Wondering how far down to go with the base, since it is all really good top soil. I do have vibration tamper plates and Jumping Jacks, and a single and double vibratory roller. We going to go for single lane rail about 40" wide and for side by side rail about 60 to 70" for the bed. and I probably want it about 12 to 15" above the ground. I have so far built 7 turnouts with number 9 frogs. have 1300' of prebuilt track with EPI plastic ties. and bought 3200 ft of west coast rail. all 7.5" gauge which most everyone has 7.25 gauge around here.

Wow, industrial strength capacity! I guess one big question is what size diameter are your road millings, and how uniform is it?

Assuming you are using 2”x2” ties, certainly your minimum ballast depth should/could be at least 4” to secure your rail from moving (2” backfilling the ties, another 2” as base for drainage. Then at least figure on another 2-6” to fill rough spots and level the sub grade. So your minimum road bed could be anywhere from 2” to 8” deep, on average. All depends on how much effort you wish to put into grading, backfilling, and leveling the soil under the road bed. Sometimes it’s quicker and easier to do minimal sub grade prep and make the road bed level with ballast - if you have plenty ballast. Also 40” wide ROW is way more wide than you likely will actually need. I’ve used 16” wide ties, 4” extra ballast on the ends, so a minimum width of 24” for flat ground ROW - up to 32” -40” wide if the ballasted bed is significantly above grade. So on average, one yard of ballast might be good for 13 - 25 feet of track., depending on how deep you make the roadbed. (If my mental math is correct)

Glenn

That's A LOT of road millings! Like Glenn said you've got plenty of ballast so you can probably rough in your grade and use the ballast to level your route. With plastic ties you've got no worry about tie rot so just as long as you have a solid base you're set.