Vines Garden Railroad Track Layout

The Vines Garden Railroad covers an area of approximately one-quarter acre. A natural ravine [Vines Creek] traverses the site bordered by native magnolia, camellia and azalea. At this time there are four separate tracks.
Three bridges, two tunnels and a viaduct carry the rail lines over and through the more difficult terrain. Peachtree Bridge, crossing Vines Creek, is of a steel modified Warren Truss design. Twenty Five feet in length this is, possibly, the longest bridge of its kind used for a garden railroad in the State of Georgia. Another double track truss bridge, known as Magnolia Bridge, is situated on the opposite side of the site. Pines Trestle traverses Dogwood River which flows from the lake and waterfall, at Pines Airport, down to the creek. Dogwood Viaduct also spans the lower part of the river. The railroads serve two cities in the gardens. One, built to more traditional design, is [of course] called Vines. The other, which is more to a Western style, we call Dogwood City. Magnolia Farm and Pines County Airport complete the scene.

The outer loop [Track One] is approximately 350 feet in length and the two inner loops [Two and Three] add about another 500 feet. The single out and back tramline is 75 feet. Plans for a wye are in progress. By incorporating six track switches in the area of the Vines City, this will allow for the transfer and/or reversal of trains between tracks One, Two and Three. When completed this will provide for the operation of three independently controlled locomotives and one trolley car to run over more than 1000 feet of track.

At the Vines Garden Railroad all track is Gauge 1 or 45mm. This compares to the Standard Gauge on full size railroads of 4’ 8½” or 1:32 Scale. Although most of our equipment is 1:29 scale this is still considered to be a standard scale for model railroading purposes.
Garden railroads are often referred to as ‘G’ Scale. This was the scale introduced by the manufacturer of the Lehmann Big Train or Lehmann Gross Bahn [LGB] in 1968. The scale was originally 1:22.5, which is considerably larger than the models normally found at the Vines Garden Railroad. For LGB the choice of 45mm track was to allow the flexibility of a railroad layout in the confines of a garden. Although this combination of scale and gauge should not be considered unusual, as full size railroads used for logging and those found in mountainous regions the track gauge is usually about 3 feet. These are also known as Narrow Gauge Railroads.