Building my ground level railway track for 3 1/2” & 5” locomotives

Building a basic oval, then maybe later add a couple of sidings.

Pictures taken in December 2024
Top end of track going around the lawn, the garden here is about 30ft wide.

The whole plot is about 70ft x 150ft
I can walk a mile a day just going around the garden.

When we took on this home 7 years ago, the ‘garden’ was unkept and overgrown, it has taken a lot of work to get it to this state. Non of the sheds existed, it was a case clearing the ground to put them up on big concrete bases.

The straight at the side of the swimming pool.

The completed loop, using aluminium track and plastic sleepers and chairs.

Some of the track laid on a gravel bed, the top loop has some of the sleepers screwed to plastic sheet under the large pebbles and this lower loop laid on concrete slabs set into the lawn, I can lift up this bottom part of the track to mow straight across the slabs.

There is almost 2ft difference in height from the bottom loop to the top, so it is power on going up and brakes on going down!