Topic: The Toronto Railway Heritage Centre - The 7 1/2" Miniature Railway

[russ]

Working out the details as we approach launch date

Our team of volunteers have been busy tidying up the last details on our miniature track by correcting small alignment and gauge problems here and there.  Track testing esting had been held back by the lack of access to all parrts of the railway as scaffolding was being used to finish restoration of the full size signal cabin that is being restored on site and right beside our track.  Below you will find some pictures of our folks doing trackwork and installing the final switch to a track which leads to the full-size truntable.
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The first weekend that Phase 1 of our museum will be open is May 29th and 30th of 2010 which is the City-wide Doors Open weekend where all sorts of places throw open their doors which may not otherwise be open to the public.  We traditionally hold an open house that weekend with a modest train show as well.  We will using that weekend to promote our museum and interact with the public.

Below you will find some pictures of our folks doing trackwork and installing the final switch to a track which leads to the full-size truntable and installing a small water tower for our miniature railway.  The last pictures show a G-Scale model of a GP7 photographed in front of the full size GP7 in our collection.
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Operating hours after that weekend are still being worked out.
 

[russ]

Installing the turntable and a storage track!
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Turning to the miniature railway Train Depot area, last Saturday's work crew addressed the challenge of fitting the turntable bridge. As shown in the pictures, it was all hands on deck in order to carry the miniature railway turntable from stall 16 of the Roundhouse to the turntable pit where we found that it was a wee bit too long to fit! So we quickly re-surveyed the pit concrete to check the centre point and determine the proper length. In these pictures, note also that doors have been fitted to the miniature railway Train Depot thereby protecting it from the elements. We also took the opportunity to work on the addition of a new siding against the north wall of the Train depot as shown in the photographs below.
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We designed the miniature railway to support both 7 1/2" and 7 1/4" gauge equipment. So, on Sunday, we also undertook a test trip around the miniature railway with a borrowed 7 1/4" gauge 1 1/2" scale gondola car looking for issues we might have with this slightly smaller gauge of equipment. A few minor issues here and there with the track gauge will be easily remedied.
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Russ
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Click on each picture for a closer look!

[Tom]

Great to see the railway ready for 2010 operations.  Looking forward to seeing it in person when the weather warms up.

Tom in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

[russ]

A Major Milestone: Driving the last Spike on the TRHC Miniature Railway!
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Monday, December 28th marked a major milestone in the development of Roundhouse Park. While our TRHA team did not drive an actual last spike to complete the miniature railway, they did complete a host of tasks remaining on the railway to render it operational and operated a miniature train around the entire figure 8 to ensure it was now operational.
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Our project manager reports that:

"We ran a miniature train consisting of the miniature F7 Diesel plus one of our new TRHC passenger cars around the circuit numerous times while making track adjustments to reduce the number of nuisance derailments that occurred during the first circuits of the track. Several of the crossings needed tweaking and a few rail joints had slight misalignments which were easily fixed with a grinder. These derailments were caused by the use of used rail with different existing wear patterns at the ends. The good news is that most of the track needed little or no work to be usable. There was plenty of interest from passing visitors, many with small children in tow."
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The completion of the miniature railway, its Sweet Creek steam locomotive and the passenger cars adds to a significant list of major milestones in 2009 for the TRHA.
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Russ

[russ]

More pictures of the trackage
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Her ewe show more pictures of the track being laid in Roundhouse Park for our miniature railway.  As you can see, quite a bit of the track is being laid in concrete.  All of the track laying was done by our teams of vounteers.
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Russ

[russ]

Adding a Crossing Signal

One of the artefacts that we had in inventory in the roundhouse was a crossing signal.  So one of the things we have done is install the signal to guard a spot beside the one of major pedestrian thoroughfares.
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Click on each picture for a closer look!

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Russ

[russ]

Rails and the Station Platform

Our miniature railway will be situated beside the original Don Station.  A passenger platform has been built as is evident in the pictures below to provide a place to load and unload passengers.  The small crossing gaurd's shack shown in one of the pictures guards the crossing which forms the centre of our 'figure 8' mainline track configuration.

Click on each picture for a closer look!

Russ

[russ]

Building a 90 degree crossing!

The miniature railway we are building has a layout in the form of a large figure 8.  This required that we fabricate a robust crossing.  In the pictures below the crossing is being tested on the floor of the roundhouse using a former 15" gauge amusement park engine converted to 7 1/4" gauge.  In the final pictures, our crew adnires their handiwork.

Click on each picture for a closer look!

Russ

[russ]

Laying Track in Concrete

Our miniature railway will traversing many concrete pathways as our site will be a very public area.  In the pictures below, we can see various stages in our preparing our trackwork for becoming embedded in the concreted areas.

Click on each picture for a closer look!

Russ

[ArnoM]

Actually, we consider it "dual gauge" as the switches have been carefully built to handle both 7 1/4" and 7 1/2" gauge.  Obviously, flanges on 7 1/4" gauge locomtoive have to be reasonably wide to work as well.  I am not sure why this decision was made to handle 7 1/2" gauge.  I will see if I can find out.

Initial reason was that we have some rather sharp radii but I am sure Michael wanted to allow 7½" visitors to run to.
The width of the flange does not matter as we are using movable frogs.

There could be a problem with 7¼" fine scale 0-4-0s on the straights because we used 8 lbs and 10 lbs rail which has a rather large radius and we all know the the fillet between the taper of the wheel and the flange must be larger than that of the rail else the wheel will climb on the outside rail in curves.

Before the track is completed and fine tuned we will not really know what we can or cannot do to accommodate visitors.
Arno

[russ]

Laying Track between the Turntable and the Roundhouse!

One of the of the challenges we faced was integrating the trackwork into the radial tracks from the turntable to the doors of the Roundhouse itself.  As per the master plan shown in an earlier post, we wanted to install one set of miniature railway tracks to one of the three stalls to be used for full size locomotive and rolling stock restoration so we could move our miniature railway equipment into this area as well.  We also installed an additional track to act as a place to store or diplay miature railway equipment.

The full size trackwork in this area was to be finished with paving stones so that the puiblic could safely walk through this area without stumbling.  Rubber strips were used between the rail and the paving stones to allow for ocaasional movement of full size railway stock.

The pictures cover the work that we did.

Russ

Click on each image below for a closer look!

[russ]

Actually, we consider it "dual gauge" as the switches have been carefully built to handle both 7 1/4" and 7 1/2" gauge.  Obviously, flanges on 7 1/4" gauge locomtoive have to be reasonably wide to work as well.  I am not sure why this decision was made to handle 7 1/2" gauge.  I will see if I can find out.

Russ  

[TSPH RR 6500]

Hello Russ,

I'm curious why you decided to go with 7-1/2" gauge rather than the "local" 7-1/4"?

[russ]

Planning the railway and starting switch construction
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One of the most complex tasks in building a miniature railway track is the design and construction of the switches. We used a CAD system to sort out the precise details of the miniature track plan and confirm our preliminary work to set the turnout angles. We settled on three switches of 75' radius, one of 60' and one at only 36' radius (but this tight radius is not on the main line). In the picture below (taken last May), we find our crew checking out the designs on a laptop computer in our "executive board room".  At that time, we had begun the process of constructing the switches. In the pictures above, we find our crew cutting and grinding rail. Our target date for completion of the miniature railway track was July 1st, 2009 but in fact it is still not complete as of today (August 25th).  We also find the track and the switches beginning to take shape.

Click on each picture for a closer look!

[russ]

Acquiring Miniature Rail for Roundhouse Park
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Early in the fall of last year, we were made aware of a supply of small size rail suitable for use in the building of our miniature railway in Roundhouse Park.  So the TRHA made the trek to Brantford to visit the recycling company who were offering this rail for sale.   The recycler had a fascinating collection of old engines and other recyclables which captured our interest as well including a crop dusting airplane as shown below.
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However, we finally focused on the task in hand and examined the rail.  As shown in the other two pictures the rail was in good shape and consisted of a roughly equal quantity of 1 ½” high (8 pounds per yard) rail and 2” high (10 pounds per yard) rail.  The rail was formerly used by the Conklin amusement ride company.  Subsequent to the visit, we agreed to purchase the rail at an attractive price.
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Russ
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Click on each picture for a closer look!