Weekend Update 2/21/16

[Puddington]

I wasn't going to run wire for fear of tearing it down everytime I even looked at the layout....

[jmarley76]

Wow, what a great view you have! 

Nice work, interested to see the end result!

[unittrain]

A picture of a large junk yard scene taking shape.

[jmarley76]

A picture of a large junk yard scene taking shape.

Will there be a spur to load a few gons?

[nkalanaga]

Chuck:  Have you been to the Wenatchee Valley Museum, 127 S. Mission Street?  They used to have a large model railroad, featuring scenes from Wenatchee and Stevens Pass, and I can't imagine them getting rid of it.  We only visited once, because we usually weren't in town when it was open, but they had a lot of interesting stuff besides the trains.  The old apple packing equipment was almost as much fun.

[Puddington]

More midnight modelling (ok; 0330 hrs....) Cell phone grabs... sorry.....

The entire hill has been plastered (unlike the owner..... what a rip off....) and an initial ground cover layer has been applied. trains now run through the small canyon. under the wooden bridge which leads up the most severe steep road in creation (ya ain't gettin Auntie Lois's 72 Pinto wagon up that slope baby...) to Rennie Castle, the mill guest house and convention center.



(Note: Facia shopped in to see what it will look like.... why; beats me.... )





Even power is dwarfed by the mill buildings.....



The corner is coming together nicely.....

[unittrain]

Will there be a spur to load a few gons?

A little further down from this curve there'll be a siding for a gravel train to the right of the curve also going to install 2 of my Train at B&O signals along this curve hopefully can make them operational I've seen some good ideas on here about the Penney signals that I'm going to try to implement. Starting scenery soon adding vegetation and some trees and of course a lot more junked cars and trucks ECT.

[chuck geiger]

N - gonna do it - I love the Northern Transcon across the river from the house. Lived near the
Chicago to LA line in Kansas.

[GN Fan]

Chuck please see a PM I'm sending.  Tom

[Rich_S]

Puddy, The Scenery looks great  Is the highway bridge in the above photo a kit or scratch built? The bridge looks very similar to a bridge that use to exist near my grandparents home. If it's a kit, is it still available? 

[wazzou]

@Rich_S
I think that bridge is available as a kit from Monroe Models.

[Puddington]

@Rich_S
I think that bridge is available as a kit from Monroe Models.

It is a Monroe kit, slightly altered.

[Rich_S]

Bryan and Puddy, Thank you for the info. I just might have to get one of those bridges and add it to my layout. It reminds me of the bridge we had to cross to reach my grandparents house and yes, there were railroad tracks that ran under the bridge.

[OldEastRR]

Nothing can be changed now, but it seems to me the far end of the bridge (in real life) would have been built inclining upward to meet the hillside, instead of sloping down. Obviously the kit was for an "up and over" situation. The problem with using kits is sometimes the "as-is" version isn't quite right for the use we need it on our layouts -- this happens with buildings all the time. It's not hard to take the simple step of asking "what's best way this model will fit in the place I'm using it?" before we start construction and placement.
In this case, what I see is that by switching the short and tall piers on the far side, plus adjusting the ground slope under them (making it steeper and higher) would keep the grade on the bridge going upward to match the rising slope of the hill. Obviously I'm not saying you should tear it out and re-do it; it's just an observation. My training and experience in civil engineering makes me notice things like this.
BTW there was (is?) a wooden bridge just like this in Hinsdale, IL, going over the Q's (now BNSF) 3-track main. A single lane bridge, it had timed traffic lights at each end to keep traffic straight.