Sparky's
History of Garden Railroading |
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Electric trains go
back a long time. Back in the days of cavemen, the cave
kids used to push rocks around. Then somebuddy's dad
invented a rope made out of weeds, and those cave kids figgered
out how to tie several rocks together and pull them around with
a long piece of that weed rope.
Then one of those cave kids made
a noise that sounded like "Train," so that was the
word that they used fer millions of years to let others know
that they were going to play with their trains.
Then somebuddy discovered how to
use a sharp rock to carve pieces of wood to look like a more
sophisticated rock, and eventually when another cave scientist
invented wheels, they came to be able to make little sticks with
wheels, and then pretty soon they had lots of them, all tied
together and pulled along behind, and they still called it a
"Train."
Then another scientist was
watching one of the cave kids play with his train, and he got
the bright idea to make some wheels that were big enough to put
under a box made out of sticks, and that was the invention of
the wagon.
After millions of years, and a
lot of refining of those first cave kid trains, we arrived at
what we now know as lecktrikal trains, but, of course, it took a
lot of clever inventors to invent motors and tracks and a lot of
other inventions.
And eventually, some feller even
invented some train tracks and other things that would work
outdoors without rusting away, and even the garden railway, or
G-Scale locomotives and cars are made to get a little bit of
rain on them without getting ruined too bad. One time I
even saw one of the other garden railway guys who had a little
snow plow that throws snow off of the track, jest like on the
reel railroads!
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Click
here to hear the locomotive
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This
section will chronicle the construction of Sparky's back yard and
the coming of the railroad and timely founding of Split Rock City! |
(NOTE:
Jim wrote this description of what went on in those early days,
cuz he knows all the details,
even though I helped with a lot of the dirt work using my
wheelbarrow and wagon). --Sparky
We
moved into the home after its completion in March of 1996, and
thus started the lengthy process of transforming the blank back
yard into a usable yard. The picture at right shows the
vacant lot before any construction was begun.
The first step in
the back yard was
to remedy the 5 foot drop from the basement back door concrete
slab to the southeast corner of the lot. A loader was hirege portion of the back yard to
about 42 inches below the level of the basement. Two
truckloads of gravel were added to the driveway to help stabilize
the mud problem resulting from the smallest of rains.
(NOTE: Us guys
didn't approve of that loader, cuz it said "CAT" on the
side of the dirt lifter thingy). --Sparky
Then a series of
drainage hoses were installed to prevent washouts at downspouts in
both the front and back yards. This was a project requiring
lots of trenching and hundreds of feet of flexible drainage hose.
After that began
the process of building retaining walls to provide a patio area
for viewing of the finished yard at some future date. A
pallet of landscape timbers was ordered, and they were cut to
length and screwed to a framework of 6 x 6 posts and landscape
timber rails. The finished retaining wall looked
great!
We decided to have a pond
installed, rather than mess around with renting cranes and
tractors, we hired a pond company, and the steps involved are
shown below in pictures. Several weeks after the water was
changed the first time, we put in $2.00 worth of goldfish. After
a couple of weeks they disappeared, so several weeks after that we
got some larger goldfish, figuring the first ones were just too
small and didn't make it. The instant the new fish were
introduced into the pond, the others came racing out from beneath
the ledge. Apparently something had scared them and they
went into hiding, and now with some "Big Guys" to
protect them, they joined in and became active again. |
Sparky's
Backyard Photo Album |
The back yard looking northwest
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Back yard looking southwest
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Back yard looking north
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Beginning of retaining wall
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Further construction
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Finished wooden retaining wall
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Pond laid out awaiting big rocks
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Unloading big rocks in driveway
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Getting more rocks from semi
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Setting big rock in yard
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Moving dead log out of the way
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The completed pond just finished
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OOPS! The finished retaining wall
still looked great, but
it was decided that it wouldn't support the weight of the brick
pavers we had decided to install on the area next to the
house. Added to the fact that when the wood eventually rots
out, it would be a serious and expensive proposition to replace,
it was decided to replace all the wood with cement retaining wall
blocks. We selected Versa-Lok
Blocks, which weighed in at
82 pounds each, and would surely support any amount of dirt and
paver bricks put behind them. It took about 8 pallets of 36
plus 55 cap blocks for the steps and retaining wall.
The pavers in the
circular and fan patterns are manufactured by Pavestone and are
called Plaza Series. Click here for more information from
Pavestone: Pavestone
Plaza Series Pavers
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Sparky's
Retaining Wall and Brick Paver Project |
Start of solid block steps
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Steps and start of retaining wall
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Retaining wall continues
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Nearly complete retaining wall
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Start of circular paver bricks
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View of pavers and trestle
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Pavers in fan configuration
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Finished wall and pavers
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I
Almost Forgot... |
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The
old folks had to do a lot of work in the front yard, cuz that
yard was jest an empty space, so they put in a lot of little
short retaining walls to hold the flower beds in, and then they
decided to put in a little garden railroad there.
They ran it a few
times, but since there was so much work to do in the back yard,
and a lot of vacations that we all had to go on, there hasn't
been no trains running up there in that front yard garden
railroad fer probably 4 years or more.
After the garden railroad in
the back yard is finished, then this one will get started
again.
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The
East Side Steps |
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After
building a fence on both the west and east sides, the old folks
built some steps and flower retaining walls along the east side
of the house. The back yard is 10 feet lower than the
front yard, so it took a lot of retaining wall blocks and step
blocks, I think I counted about 14 pallets of them.
You Are Visitor Number
Since July 30, 2003
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