# Anyone using railroad ties or retaining walls for pump track berms?



## cyrjm (May 3, 2007)

I started a massive backyard pump track project last year. 150ft long by 40 ft wide space to play with, got a ton of clay and a Bobcat for a few days to move dirt. A day after I finished moving most of the dirt we got dumped with rain here in Georgia and holy **** do I have some drainage issues.

Now I'm starting over and am wanting to use railroad ties to raise the straights off the ground and I'm torn over using the ties for the berms or building retaining walls. Anyone have pictures using either? Any input regarding drainage, etc? Retaining walls I assume will require crushed rock, more accuracy in terms of being level and backfilling too. With the ties I was just going to build 3 sides, 4ft high and stake them using rebar. Not sure if I need to backfill those?

Thanks!


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## cmc4130 (Jan 30, 2008)

cyrjm said:


> I started a massive backyard pump track project last year. 150ft long by 40 ft wide space to play with, got a ton of clay and a Bobcat for a few days to move dirt. A day after I finished moving most of the dirt we got dumped with rain here in Georgia and holy **** do I have some drainage issues.
> 
> Now I'm starting over and am wanting to use railroad ties to raise the straights off the ground and I'm torn over using the ties for the berms or building retaining walls. Anyone have pictures using either? Any input regarding drainage, etc? Retaining walls I assume will require crushed rock, more accuracy in terms of being level and backfilling too. With the ties I was just going to build 3 sides, 4ft high and stake them using rebar. Not sure if I need to backfill those?
> 
> Thanks!


Got any pics? It's hard to say without seeing it.

I know Central Texas is very different, but in my experience, if the riding line is higher than the surrounding dirt, then the water will drain off the riding line. We are also able to dig "French drain" style holes which allow water to drop straight downward. I suppose that may or may not work depending on the soil type.

Unless you're trying to have a manicured/structured look, I don't think there's any need to have railroad ties in or around berms. Packed dirt is its own structure.

If you dig down the inside of berms well below ground level (like what this guy is standing in), that will be the place for the water to go and slowly seep downwards:










Same idea from our spot. That area to the left of the berm, we dug down a couple feet, so water drops downwards there. Packed clay acts as a liner, so water will just sit on top of it, but loose soil (non-compacted) usually still allows water to soak down.









At Trestle . . . note the drain (covered with rocks) on the inside of the berm. This is a little different, because (obviously) they're piping under the berm and allowing the water to go down the mountainside.









I took this pic at Whistler. Note how the riding line of the whole pump track is raised above ground level. They used just dirt to do it.


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## cyrjm (May 3, 2007)

Yeah, the idea of the ties is to raise the track (straight) 6 inches above the base. Also to make it look good too, this pump track will be landscaped with mulch, bushes and stone. So, the ties will be decorative as well as functional. My design will be a modified figure 8 and on the inside of the track will be large river stones so that water can drain into those areas. I'd like to make the flats, in between the rollers, drain inward. I do like the idea from the first picture (HUGE berm btw) and plan on doing that as well. The reason I want to use ties or blocks to build a retaining wall is really for aesthetics.

Here's the space I'm working with before I started. I'm going to blow away all the work I've done and start fresh like in these pics:

Backyard Pump Track | Dirt For My Pumptrack


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## Markhpnc (May 5, 2011)

I built this berm retaining wall only because of space constraints so I could still get a decent height berm close to the neighbor's fence. It's made with 4x4s and rebar. Even with having to pay for dirt, the retaining wall was still more expensive than doing it all out of dirt. So I wouldn't do it unless I had too because of layout, or already had the materials.

Originally I thought it would be fairly simple like using logs out on a trail. But as I started actually trying to assemble it wasn't like I thought so I started researching retaining walls. Turns out the legit ones are fairly complicated (I'm not a carpenter or engineer).

Not that it matters but this is a kiddie mini dh flow trail not an actual pumptrack.
























This is Lee McCormick on a pt at Valmont from the new Bike Parks book from IMBA.


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## cyrjm (May 3, 2007)

Problem is I have a metric **** ton of roots to contend with so digging post holes isn't going to happen. This looks good though, I'm going to start rebuilding soon. I have to sort something out!


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