Lady_Railfan
House Mother, Cheerleader
We have blue sky today for the first time in a week, after 7.51 inches of rainfall since the 18th! That's more than we sometimes get for an entire season.
I finally screwed up my courage to slog out and look at the layout yesterday, and had a very pleasant surprise. Not only did the pounding (2.85 inches Tuesday night) not do any significant damage, it actually did a wonderful job of compacting the ROW!
Sure, some of the track is high and dry, but more underlayment and ballast is all it will take to fix it up again. Picture #1 shows the track I dug up earlier to realign and repair mudslide damage from earlier rains. There's nearly 2 inches of air under that section of track.
In picture #2 you see where the pounding rain pressed the dirt well below track level on an established stretch of track.
Obviously, there's still a lot to do. The larger gravel you see is supposed to be the underlayment (drainage) material, but some of that has migrated a bit. That's not a problem, though. I love sifting and grading gravel.
I finally screwed up my courage to slog out and look at the layout yesterday, and had a very pleasant surprise. Not only did the pounding (2.85 inches Tuesday night) not do any significant damage, it actually did a wonderful job of compacting the ROW!
Sure, some of the track is high and dry, but more underlayment and ballast is all it will take to fix it up again. Picture #1 shows the track I dug up earlier to realign and repair mudslide damage from earlier rains. There's nearly 2 inches of air under that section of track.
In picture #2 you see where the pounding rain pressed the dirt well below track level on an established stretch of track.
Obviously, there's still a lot to do. The larger gravel you see is supposed to be the underlayment (drainage) material, but some of that has migrated a bit. That's not a problem, though. I love sifting and grading gravel.