<center><h2>Hello, hivers!</h2></center>

In my last post, I talked about rebuilding the back curve on the railroad, and hauling ballast gravel to fill in between the ties.  By the middle of July, I had a fair amount of the railroad ballasted.

![DSCN5120.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoprspxZ4LboKCSn69eaLGvbLxKDYiGZzrfWFVrHkfBoiH3BuykEwA4JNfVb5XhVDPT.JPG)

Then the end of July came, and the beans started getting ripe.  I decided to use the railroad flatcar to sit on to pick the beans in the raised bed.
This picture is from the middle of August, but you can see how I was using the flatcar to pick beans.  The flatcar makes it easy to move down the length of the raised bed without getting up.  I just roll the car down the track a bit at a tim as I'm picking the beans.

![DSCN5481.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoEp6ZbdS1QWjerNNUQPZmujK91vApJCgUk18tQ5Gm5Xnr3msJeUKdEvzaqx6k2YgAe.JPG)

The first time I tried using the flatcar to sit on, I discovered that the track was too close to the raised bed, and I didn't have enough room for my feet.  Since using the car to sit on to work in the raised beds was one of the reasons that I put the track there in the first place, I knew that I would need to move the track away from the raised bed as far as I could within the limits of the space that I had.  Of course, that also meant that I had to move the turnout with the track.

I started the process with the turnout.  I had to remove some of the ballast to be able to slide the track sections away from the raised bed.  The bucket was a handy place to put the ballast rock until I was ready to put it back on the track.

![DSCN5297.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoCfdn6rKsz74AStmeBfn7mup9BFRmLhfVSa71GxQLbWArqEkZVH7cRFMaJKFqxyHht.JPG)

In this picture, you can see the gaps in the ballast close to the raised bed where the ties used to be before I pulled the track away from it.

![DSCN5299.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoeFrCSWgktJPhzo33PgtZVG5op5owBnh41GTnjEqCJ3diScA6UtFrtjcPVAkCHjJnU.JPG)

I pulled the track out one section at a time after removing the ballast on the outside so the track could slide out easier.

![DSCN5300.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoGwWjzDDduifqWXUEM3E2Mab8j2zwdgmdqt7urKuSFC2RJA6hbzXpudmxABst3PkdH.JPG)

![DSCN5301.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoChCepPT4jDrrDUDZXTtoiZQ6JESyUBPxR6SkE17m4uV9a7iSEZbPqG1jkrikpNWFR.JPG)

After I was done moving the track away from the raised bed, I had about 4-5 inches more room.  That doesn't seem like a lot, but it made a difference when working on the raised beds.  I didn't have to move the end by the back corner because the raised bed on that end already had more space to work with.

![DSCN5302.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoCgjKfBUFUiXWhSDUZ49dauiwD6VrjE1Jp2ssg1m9riJ2wxBdYQkvEs64ifp79arUz.JPG)

Because I had to move the turnout in order to move the track, I also had to disconnect the track at the other end of the turnout in order to have the space to move the turnout.

![DSCN5304.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoK5pgrPAUR7ZSPeqGLEdeiNcqVeZzxujyDZGXzazfjxPykzgtMBAq6Edn1tVWdMgDs.JPG)

Of course, that meant that the track to the greenhouse didn't line up with the turnout.  I had 2 choices, cut the ends off the rails so the track panel would line up again, or move the track panels going to the greenhouse.

![DSCN5303.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoEq3J8oB6S5Lj6T2j1K22vbVPcJbNTFWV5PJs3Hhjn3dKdmNVRUbt2TFXpdpxRXWX8.JPG)

I didn't want to have to drill new holes in the rail ends for the rail joiners, so I chose to move the track.  That meant that I had to remove more ballast so that I could move the track panels.  The process wasn't too bad because only about half of the track was ballasted.  I just scraped enough of the ballast up on the pavers to be able to move the track panels.  I disconnected the panels and moved them one at a time until I had everything moved and lined back up, then I reconnected the track panels.

![DSCN5306.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoeEQSZsxbWKpGbkWa6GMgv6fE5QVJjFuMcpiNywNwU8trMes9tkzkkYYN1MbFfm7uN.JPG)
 
Once I had the track panels moved and reconnected, I reballasted the track in that section.

![DSCN5307.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoiVCpQhD5Lp1FtbdwwQrMdTyFuSRLYCWKkitMRT4n1Ax7yiWb6LNo3vyLpQR2M3kfF.JPG)

Once I had the greenhouse section of track finished, I finished putting the ballast back onto the raised bed section of track.

![DSCN5305.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoCgfccstV56GAdk7BfXUgPWgEPp9pox6onwivAw3BGpHsHPaPz9RWViS8GR8EsBc8b.JPG)

I didn't have any more ballast rock to use to finish the end of the greenhouse track by the turnout, so that had to wait for another day.
I also needed more paver blocks to line the edge of the track with.  I had been getting them 10 at a time from the local big box store and moving them from the gate by the alley with the flatcar.  I was also using the paver blocks for a different project by the greenhouse.

![DSCN5295.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoK6ptXm56wPPE5bcVHwkoVQ2his8tz5ASn8SAwxHy6rSJTuW4FEsVy78uz57yLySeG.JPG)

You can see the start of that project here.  That project got a lot bigger, but that is a story for a different day.

![DSCN5308.JPG](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/EoiVfG48XWBTxLoWnom9QncWFXpRJhC6FitNvwvLK6qbzVUtbVquPq4EcqzLh2kzJh6.JPG)

After all of this work, I didn't do any more work on the railroad until September when I made a few improvements to the railroad.  I'll tell you about that in my next post about my garden railroad.

Thanks for stopping by to read my post!  I hope you found it interesting!


![amber_yooper.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/amberyooper/Ep1ZPpCTqbfPwGhMFbBsxt2rZC2CoQ9tyvXvHe1qUdegC7UoALSQcjPAL51xzE1Jnj5.png)