We started our line with no knowledge of how it should be done. Turf was removed and levelled by eye then plastic sheet or garden weed cover placed in the trench which was about 4 inches deep. We then added shingle as it was the cheapest ballast available. However after a while I realised why shingle was not recommended.

What we found was the line sunk in the shingle requiring regular brushing as the shingle went over the top of the rails. The picture below gives some idea of this as you cannot see the sleepers which have disappeared.

Picture below is when the line came to the bottom of the garden and into a 10ft radius curve and back up on its self via a set of points.

 A far better substance to use is Granite chippings in the size of 6mm to dust, this quickly compacts to an almost cement like solidity holding the rail very well. An added benefit to us is the lawn mower wheels do not dig in to the granite when mowing closely to the edges.

Granite chips can be purchased from building companys although I had to order tonne sacks as they only stocked it in small bags.(from memory about £60 tonne) I have heard that granite is not used by some for fear of the chips damaging or derailing the loco but have had no such problems thus far.

Unfortunately by the time this was realised I had put down about 3 tonnes of shingle.

I have put granite chippings on top of the shingle in places and this is a very good compromise. 

Our rail is a mixture of steel strips spaced by studding and wooden sleepers and Maxitrak jubilee Rail kits which are Aluminum Rail and sleepers.

The sleepers have tabs on and you just push the rail on to the tabs and then bend them over with a drift.

The major advantage is it is totally maintenance free. Downside is it doesnt look as realistic as wooden sleepers.

This is the original line, metal sections joined by threaded bar sitting on treated wooden sleepers

This is maxitraks jubilee line which is all aluminum and you can see the tabs which are bent over once the rail is in position. In this shot I have painted the sleepers in the station area for more realism. Cant be bothered to paint the other aprox 700.

Curving The Rail.

Curving the line was quite nerve racking to start with, but I have found it is easy to just get one rail and gently curve it around your knee working along the length to reach the desired curve. I had a piece bent to the minimum  10 feet radius as a guide.The second rail can either be done simultaneously or bent to match the first. It isnt critical to get them exactly the same as once you start snapping the sleepers in place they will ensure the two pieces match up. I must stress that this method has worked fine for Me but there are rail bending tools which work on a similar method to copper pipe benders and this is the regarded correct method.  

I definitely agree with the tip that you should not make the curves any tighter than they really have to be. You can feel the resistance when a loco negotiates tight curves it saps the power.

Given the time I would open up our curves which are 10 feet radius because they dont need to be that tight now the railway has been extended around the perimeter of the garden. 

Our railway has greater gradients than is recommended but this is forced by the lay of the land. The only way out of this would be to raise up the rail near the bottom of the garden which I am considering.

I have not measured the gradient but I have found the locos do a good job with the smallest (Thomas) pulling two adults up the inclines. What becomes a big problem is if you have gradient and a significant curve at the same time, that is bad news and needs to be avoided at all costs.

I find that traction becomes the problem when the track is damp and gentle use of the speed control becomes necessary. Loco no3 to date is the only power unit that has not wheel spun at some point.

An idea of the gradient can be seen from the picture below

This is looking from the lowest point of the railway on the return  toward the station, the gentle curve ahead is ok.

Our line starts and finishes in a sideway and therefore required a turntable at the end. My inspiration for this was from The Corris Hill Railway by Chris Rennie. I will not go into a detailed explanation as he and others have produced a detailed section on building a turntable.(the web address is on the links paragraph)

The turntable is basically set on four paving stones, encircled by block driveway bricks,and a central pivot.(tip spend time getting the slabs flat and true to each other, or the castors will encounter a lip)  I mounted the line on wood sections and joined it by metal brackets. The table then rotates on plastic castors similar to those on television stands etc. I wasn't sure of the durability of the wheels but to date they have had no problems.The alternative is to have a ring of rail made up and run train wheels.

I used a maxitrak aluminum sleeper up turned with the tabs removed to guide a locating piece of galvanised steel to line up the track and turntable.(shown in picture2)

We remove the turntable after use and store it in the shed to prolong its life.

What I did find was the steel rail expands in the summer and it was necessary to have a gap of around 5-6mm in the winter to avoid this closing right up in the summer sun.   

Our line currently has two sets of points, one left hand and one right hand 10 foot radius curves.

They are made up from a Maxitrak points kit. I have got to say I found building the first one harder than I thought it would be.It probably took me about five hours, two hours of which was spent working it out.

I made a mistake on the first set by not bending the pieces of rail that needed curving. As I built up the points thinking I knew better I tried to curve the rail in situ using the template as the guide and the straight rails to hold it all in place. What happened was the whole points kit just distorted, and if you look down it it does a sort of shimmy but still works luckily. 

I built the second set over a year later and had forgotten some of it. However I got Maxitrak to curve the pieces on a rail bender first because trying to curve a piece of rail to a set raduis when it is only about a foot long is not easy without the appropriate tool. This set took about half the time to build.

This is the good set, looks like it would take about half an hour to make. 

I have sprung the mechanism for direction on the points so in this shot as the loco returns from the top it goes straight on into the station. However a loco leaving the station from bottom right curve will join the mainline by springing the points open which subsequently return to their original position once the last carriage has past.    

In the siding I have made a buffer from softwood battening. It is screwed down to the rail and features an unrealsitic bit of expanded foam which does a good job of slowing down a truck/carriage which occasionally gets rammed at it.

The crossing was constructed near the green house so a wheel barrow could be maneuvered in and out without dropping into the railway ditch and out again.

It simply consists of normal rail with another short length inside the rail which is screwed down to the sleepers. The end sections have been tapered in to avoid any contact from the wheels of the rolling stock and locos. I taped over the gap which the wheels run in and then cemented it into place before removing the tape.

It makes a nice hollow sound when the loco passes over it.