Posted Feb. 8, 2023

I haven’t figured this one out. Maybe you can. The first thing every kid wants to do when he visits Discovery Park is climb on a rail car and crank it around the track. Is it the tunnel, the woods? It’s a long track – 650 feet which is 1 scale mile. They don’t go around once – it’s multiple times. Then they couple their car with someone else and go around again! The best part is watching mom and dad suddenly climbing on a car and racing around with their kids. They’re hooked. The parents are discovering their own joy of play. The crazy part is, few of these kids have ever ridden a train – but the fascination remains.

We also put in a siding track with two switches. Not that we needed a siding, but it’s one more item to explore and figure out.

There are two parts to building a railroad. The hand crank cars from the early days are no longer made. I found someone who had restored some at $2000 each and a company that makes fancy fiberglass body ones for $5000 each. But this isn’t an amusement park. SO, we drew up plans to build our own. Bicycle pedals are the hand cranks and under the floor is a rear bicycle hub. That gives us the ability to coast and brake.

The track laying was also a challenge. You can’t make the curve too sharp or the train will jump the track. Finding a path through the woods and not going through a big tree took many tries. Trains don’t handle hills well. Even two degrees on a track is considered steep. Although our land looks flat, it isn’t when you are talking about 1 or 2 degrees. When you ride our rails, it’s easy to crank along, but then you hit that 1 degree coming out of the woods towards the blueberries, you can feel it.

The path is set. Now comes tons of gravel to build up a base for the track. Track and self spacing ties came from Kent, Ohio and took hours to screw all the 10 foot sections together. But wait – there's more! Now all the sections have to be screwed together with some rails trimmed and new screw holes added. Now more tons of gravel (ballast) to lock the track to the base.

Is it worth the expense and months of work? 100% yes. To see the kids and parents go around again and again – it was worth every bead of sweat!