Thanks!

I'm familiar with Train Mountain. Some day I'll visit.

It will be time well spent and Lots-O-Fun during a big train meet,... check out the web site .

German Feldbahnen have definitely had an influence here. Thanks for watching.

There are tracks around the country, both public and private, that could use volunteers.

It is fun, but you do have to be careful with it. Those small cars hold more than a half ton of ballast each. The big ballast hopper holds over 2,000 lbs and the only brakes on the whole train are on the engine.

In joke. It was a reference two of my past derailments.

I agree, The amount of ballast being dumped seems to be an issue. Multiple passes rather than at one go.

Nah! RJ Corman.

@@MillBrookRailroad marvelous! LOL big time!

. Like that cab..it looks just like a railroad crane...and thoes adorable windows that open really sealed it...little exaust stack too.

Yea he would..I love shoestring

And don't forget jawtooth he would definitely scream out LIVE ACTION..start the video son😊

@@lornperkins4270 But wait, there's more.. 🤣😂🤣😂

@@SaltyNationalist yaaaay. ...there always is

Thanks! It's always fun to get to work on the SHFR.

I had a homemade ballast car with a sliding gate and chutes. I had it set up so I could ballast without anyone helping. Sadly, that car was all wood, except for the chutes, gate and floor and the wooden pieces rotted to death. I still have the tin but the trucks are now under the snow plow.

That's something I'll have to design special. I haven't had a lot of success with hoppers that drop stone between the rails but I haven't done a lot of experimenting with it, either.

I would think maybe a v shaped trowel with a rail scraper.

Having worked on (3) such railroads, think you were on the right track (no pun intended) with your side dump hopper car. Dumping ballast between the rails creates all kinds of excess work and effort. Put the ballast where it's needed...at the end of the ties. Level and line the track and then fill in the center for looks. Don't worry about building ANOTHER hopper car to ballast between the rails. You'll be wasting your time.

Perhaps a smaller screed (More to the scale of the train/tracks. Just a thought!

I get your point. Unfortunately, it is impossible to control the flow from those cars. The gates are either open or closed. Something I mentioned to the owner of the railway. He's still in denial at the moment, but I'm certain he'll come around eventually. My own ballast hopper was much more easily controlled before the body rotted.

glenn, you made me laugh! and remember. when i was 21 (62 now) i was working on a rail gang for the northwestern railway. we were on a double main at the commuter station in elgin, il. we were replacing one main with all new everything. the brakeman in charge didn't want to wait for the machine that would spread the ballast proper, so he had us chain an old rail tie to the ballast car so as to drag the ballast flat...some of us suggested we should wait....he wouldn't hear of it as it was nearing the end of the day...and soon commuter rush hour.... well, the pour began, and the ballast immediately got ahead of the dragging rail tie, we scrambled with shovels to pull it aside and then one ballast about the size of a fist got under the wheel, we dropped shovels and ran as the whole hopper lifted and fell off the track.... almost like in this video, but as you said, at 1:1 scale.....ha! nobody picking it up....hours to wait for the crane, great overtime and a chuckle when the big white hats showed up and started chewing the brakemans' buttocks as commuters by the droves were scrambling to get around the mess..... these guys on the vid made it look so easy...!!!!

I lived in Malden and Acton while working in N Quincy when a lot of the surface work was being done (1994-2000) then moved west of Worcester, I had enough of Boston driving LOL

@@MikeT-TheRetiredColonel First Many thanks for your service. I never learned to drive. I also wear hunter orange often.

Yes. This was discussed off camera.

They're neon.

Socializing is half the fun for me.

All you need to start is a pick, a shovel and a garden rake.

That's the primary power for the Stoddard Hill Farm Railway

First, you need a good, level roadbed with ditches. Then you need at least two inches of ballast under the track, pack that down, lay the track, level the track, add more ballast, tamp, regulate and move on to the next section.

There is more to the story. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nN5xZcZ3vd7YnJ8.html

There is an adjustable sprocket in there. It wasn't adjusted properly.

Bill came up with something different. Stay tuned.

@@MillBrookRailroad sweet :)

There's a directory of live steam tracks at discoverlivesteam.com.

I've solved the ballast dropping issues on my railroad. I built a hopper with a gate that allows me to control the flow rate and added chutes that allow me to control where the ballast drops. Unfortunately, the body was plywood and spent a winter in a snow bank, which caused it to start to delaminate. It didn't last many years after that. I still have the steel parts, so I'll rebuild it at some point.

I run a radio station and a tiny media production company. The guy who owns the Stoddard Hill Farm Railway builds model railroads for a living. Now there's a cool job.

Lol i was going to say the same!

Naw. It makes a man feel good. Builds up testosterone

Larger than this and you get into theme park railroads, mining railroads and industrial transport systems.

Yup. That was a surreal moment for me. Couldn't figure another way of saying it.

You don't have to win the lottery. I built a thousand feet of track in 10 years. Overall, it cost me about $5,000 for the track. Over a decade, that's an average of $500 per year. Most of the work doesn't require any money at all. It's a lot of learning new skills like surveying a grade and designing a roadbed. The last thing you do is put track on it. As for the trains: The trains in this video are not cheap to buy, but the owner built the engine and cars. On the budget end, a new small locomotive can be had for the price of a small lawn tractor and new cars will cost between $1000-2000. Used equipment is all over the place. Some people ask more for their used equipment than it sold for new. Something you have to watch out for.

@@MillBrookRailroad This is the most honest and realest comment I have ever read on KZfaq. Not sure how I even came across this video as I'm more into Lego (just built a Lego city with a huge train layout), but I am intrigued and impressed by this and glad I did. I just instantly subscribed and will one day try this sometime in the future as I love trains. Thanks for this advice.

@@MillBrookRailroad Thank you for the insightful, thoughtful and revealing reply. I was mostly referring to the land cost as in this area the state (FL) I live it is 500k per acre in 2021 :( I need to move to a beautiful spacious place like where you are :) again thanks for posting this great inspirational content, you truly make the world a better place!

@@callmebigpapa If you live in Florida, take a closer look at my snow plowing videos before wanting to move to the frozen north.

@@MillBrookRailroad yeah I ve seen video's of a few nice models like this one..one old boy had live steam locomotives it was soo cool had cars he could fit 2 people in at a time and a caboose...I ve heard thoes engines and the diesel ones are pretty expensive upwards of the mid 30's ..and they are surprisingly pretty heavy..he had a lift for his. I love railroad things like the miniature sets that you can straddle and ride..thoes engines are surprisingly powerful too..they can pull a lot of weight.

You can't just buy one for this size railroad. You have to build it. We have a simple homemade ballast regulator at the Mill Brook Railroad, but not at the Stoddard Hill Farm Railway yet.

Also, slightly smaller chutes would control the flow.

You pretty much described the large side dump hopper with amazing detail.

@@MillBrookRailroad wait really?

@@gunrunner7224 the car that's loaded at 2:03 has a ridge going down the middle and dumps off to the sides. All it's missing is a rotating chute, but those tend to be problematic. The ballast car we had on the MLBK was a bit different from this. It dumped down the middle but had moveable chuts that would dump ballast off to the sides and you could lift the chutes on either side so it would block ballast from dropping on the side you didn't want it. It also had a gate that could open and close as much or as little as you wanted so you could control the flow of ballast. It made ballasting a one person job. I worked that car so hard it fell apart. I'll have to build a new one.

No brakes at all on the cars. Only the independent brake on the loco.

There are several rail suppliers. You can find some of them at www.discoverlivesteam.com.

@@MillBrookRailroad Thank you! Much appreciated.

Most states have regulations on boilers, so if you have live steam they can be subject to that. If you charge money to ride the train you may become a common carrier. Insurance companies have operational and maintenance requirements if you wish to insure yourself against getting sued for something that happened with/near/while looking at the train. Once you get up to 3' gauge or start crossing jurisdictional boundaries then you trigger attention as well.

Just what the world needs, more regulations.

There's a running joke among my Facebook followers about that.

The box cab has 4 batteries in it 2 series sets in parallel for a 24V pack.

The track cost about $10 per foot at the time. It is a one-time expense. It takes about an hour to build and install 10 feet of track. The engines are battery electric. Most of this stuff is homemade. When you compare it to other motor hobbies, it's cheaper than things like classic cars and motorcycles. You can use it year-round, and you don't have to worry about other drivers on the road trying to kill you or wreck what you just spent years building.

Well I must say, having that railroad must cost a lot in liability insurance and made your taxes go up.