My garden railway restoration project is moving slower than I had expected. In addition to clearing weed, rocks and other garden “debris” from the track there are also two other major jobs involved.
First, the track has suffered from years of benign neglect. As you can see from the photographs below, sections of the track are not level. While up and down tracks may be fine for a rollercoaster ride, trains require perfectly level, perfectly smooth track to run properly.
The second, and biggest problem, is delivering electrical power to the track. The trains run on electrical power and every inch of track must be electrified. If there are electrical gaps in the track, the locomotives may slow down or even stop. There are over 100 feet (33 meters) of track running in the shape of a dog-bone loop so the challenge is to keep electricity flowing to the whole track.
Electricity to the track is delivered by special transformers. The transformers change (or transform) household A/C current (alternating current) to D/C current (direct current). The previous homeowner took the transformers with him, so now I must find transformers to power the track.
One available alternative is to modify the trains to run on battery power; that, however, is expensive and time consuming. In order to change the locomotives to run on battery power, each locomotive has to be opened up, battery packs fitted inside the locomotive and some sort of radio control (R/C) installed to control the train's speed. Right now, a rheostat in the transformer controls speed by regulating how much electricity goes to the track – the more electricity going in, the faster the trains run. With battery power, however, each locomotive must be individually controlled, so that is why R/C is needed.
I will keep you posted of progress on the DBRR (Debbie Bulloch Railroad). By the way, DB stands for Deutsch Bahn or German Railways, very convenient, eh?
All aboard ... chooo...choooo...
When restoration work is finished on the DBRR, it will (I hope) look something like the railroad shown on the video clip below.
