The start of my garden railroad, its origin story if you will, traces back to a Barnes and Noble cafe. Back when my wife, Sharon, and I were starting to look for our first house, we would pass many an evening at the bookstore. It was like a library but with late night caffeine. After perusing the shelves, we would usually grab a couple of magazines to look through with our drinks. We collected ideas of what we wanted in our house. Beautiful light, brightly colored walls, hardwood floor. As we found pictures that we liked we would buy the magazine and save the pictures. Still have the scrapbook. And the house might have echoes of a few of those ideas. We also dreamed of gardens. Sharon, growing up in the big city, could count the plants she had on one hand. The plants, not the types. In response, she had the gardening bug. We looked at grand estates. And little porch gardens, Anything with color overlaying a lush green foundation. One evening while picking through the garden mag...

Vitus Emil Fibiger's dream has finally been realized. Today we fired up the first of our steam engines and ran around the completed track. After Vitus discovered Baja Fibiger, he wanted nothing more than to be able to share the unique beauty of the area with others. Due to the marshy lands, and some rather intimidating residents, a train is the best way to get visitors close to the amazing flora and fauna. Join us in celebrating this great milestone.  The rainy season is setting in so final work and opening to tourists will have to wait until next year. In the meantime, we will continue improving the rails, build a station, and restore our engine and rolling stock.  See you when we open.

This summer was particularly hot and busy at work so construction time was limited to small chunks here and there. But as fall approached I was able to give some focused time to the train and have been making good progress. A while ago I completed the initial sections so that I could  run the trains  a little. But trips were limited. The track didn't extend much beyond either switch and someone had to be at the controls all the time. Run time was about 20 seconds before the train had to stop and reverse. The train had to be short with only one or two cars besides the engine. Completed back segment That gave me plenty of incentive to complete more segments. I was able to add another segment in the back part that runs through the shrubs. And then in just a couple of days I was able to build the ladder railbed for four segments of the layout and was ready to install them in place. Due to the trouble we had getting pieces to line up (future post that's coming) my wife and I ...

After my first trial , I did some internet searching to find other designs. I had seen one in Garden Railways magazine that I liked with the track on an open ladder and held up by poles. So when I stumbled upon O Scale Trains By Ron  on YouTube, and he had instructional videos, I knew I had my new approach. Ron also has some instructions and photos on his website . We'd see if this worked out. I tend to be a little impatient when starting a new project so once I had the idea of how the ladder railbed would go together, I dived right in. The basic design would have two pieces of PVC lattice board forming the supports (girders) with PVC trim cut down to be spacers. Holding the whole thing up I would screw the ladder railbed to a plumbing tee (mount) attached to a 1" PVC pipe which would telescope out of a 1.25" PVC pipe which is sunk into the ground. Since I was using track pieces with known radii, I thought I could calculate the inner and outer radii of the ladder...

We decided early on that we wanted the track for our train to be raised. We wanted it off the ground because the yard occasionally floods (both from heavy rains and extremely high tidal events) and we didn't want to be digging through the existing garden plants to lay the railbed. But we wanted it low enough so it was easy to step over and get to the plants inside. About 6 to 12 inches off the ground would work. So I looked online for some ideas. One idea was to use PVC deck boards as the base. They would stand up to the weather and provide a nice firm base. I could even make trim pieces as rails on the edges with trim pieces and fill in with ballast. I got a couple of pieces to practice with and the first attempt looked good. A short straight piece with the rails separated from the board by a couple of washers so rain water could flow out. And then I tried the first curve.... Not so good.  The boards were only just slightly wider than the ties on the track. As soon as the track s...

Construction on the Coastal Titans Railroad started with a survey of the land. There were several obstacles to work around including a tree, several pokey Yucca plants and the existing garden border. After picking the approximate path we wanted it to take: follow the edge of the garden down one side, turn in onto an old path, skirt around the tree, split around a sunken pond (still to be dug) and emerge back out into the yard, we mapped it out. Being technical people we decided to do a little surveying. Two markers defined the origin and a reference point. We laid out pavers at regular intervals around the loop. Using tape measures, we measured the distance from each block to the two reference points. Then using some trigonometry, we turned all of those measurements into a map. Map of the layout as initially measured Now we could import that into our track design software, SCARM , as a background. This way, we could see the intended route while designing the track. W...

Today were the first test runs of the Coastal Titans Railroad. The initial segments of track, where the future station will be built, was completed and signed off. Below are videos of the near-final testing of the track and the sign-off run once all risers were leveled and secured. Construction can now begin on segments of track going through the dense foliage. Initial running to test the track: This made sure that the track was smooth and stable. Sign-off run: This was after all the risers were leveled and secured. The track is now operational.