The Barnesville yard is getting closer to completion as I've added more track today:
Michael
The Breitenbach - Rosenheim Railroad V3
I've been stuck in meetings most of the day so all I could accomplish today was to install a single turnout:
Now I have to go see the same people for dinner and unfortunately tomorrow and Wednesday will be much of the same, more meetings, too much food...
I'm back at work and I'm back working on the layout as well. The yard is complete! It might not be completely prototypical but it sure looks good (to me at least).
If you build a yard you have to make sure that trains will fit...
Today I have started to work on the next two bridges:
A little bit of paint:
A member of the MRH forum suggested a placement of the bridges like this: Does this look better?
Yes, because with the tracks underneath on a curve, the second (suggested) arrangement leaves more clearance room for the supports under the bridges.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I made the bridge abutments:
...and cut the roadbed:
I've installed the bridges. I'm not sure I really like the way they look...?
Why not?
Rich
Alton Junction
Hi Michael:
Have you considered skewing the girders on each bridge instead of just having the bridges offset? In other words, build the bridges as parallelograms instead of building them square. That would require you to change the bridge abutments so that they run more parallel to the lower track but I don't think that would be difficult.
Another question I have is why is there a separation between the double track bridge and the single track bridge? If you move the single track closer to the double track you could have just one three track bridge with girders between each of the tracks.
I suppose that if the single track bridge was built at a later date that might justify the two separate bridges.
Bottom line is that skewing the bridge girders might look a lot more interesting.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
New slogan for the line: "Route of the Skewed Bridges". I previously mentioned that he should make one of his stone bridges a skew bridge like the one here in town, since it should be realtively easy to skew the pattern in software and let the laser cutter do the rest, and now here is a suggestion to skew a girder bridge. There's one of those, or at least there used to be, near the high school I went to, part of the Lehigh Valley's Easton & Northern branch. That one was only single track, but it crossed over the road at an angle so the girders were offset such that the cross beams underneath were parallel to the street.
Thanks everybody for their opinion! For now i will keep these bridges as they are, but whenever I build version 6 of the G&AM I will redesign this corner of the layout.
To make my life a bit easier I decided to do some basic landscaping before I mount the bridges in place:
Personally, I preferred the original (pre paint) arrangement for the bridges, but my question is: What control system are you going to use? My apologies if this has already been asked and answered.
Old Fat Robert
I took a coffee break and applied a layer of Sculptamold:
Old Fat Robert Personally, I preferred the original (pre paint) arrangement for the bridges, but my question is: What control system are you going to use? My apologies if this has already been asked and answered. Old Fat Robert
Robert,
I don't know yet. There is a really good German software solution that I like but for some crazy reason the owner of the company that makes it took the last US election personally and now does not sell to states that went for the president. I don't know what his issue is but even if I get the program through a friend someplace else I would be stuck without support. And just in principle I can't support a company that acts like this.
That leaves me with several second choices but I haven't made a decision yet.
Somewhat off topic but (considering your European influences) have you any experience with the PIKO systems? I have been looking at their system due to a particular "situation" with one of my frequent visiting operators.
Old Fat Robert Somewhat off topic but (considering your European influences) have you any experience with the PIKO systems? I have been looking at their system due to a particular "situation" with one of my frequent visiting operators. Old Fat Robert
No, I have not looked at PIKO at all.
Yesterday evening I started to work on the design for the first new structure. I created the base and had the laser cut it out today to see how it fits:
I applied some gray and brown zip texture around the bridge abutments (still wet):
With the bridges in place:
Looks like you need the computer to cut some floor joists!! Just kidding. Your work is terrific. Just wonderful.
Old Fat Robert Looks like you need the computer to cut some floor joists!! Just kidding. Your work is terrific. Just wonderful. Old Fat Robert
I'm glad you like it. It's a lot of fun as well !
I have learned the hard way how easy it is to be off with some dimensions when creating drawings for a new building. Many structures I built I actually built at least twice: one for the trash can and one for the layout. So I decided that from now on I will always test fit the raw walls before doing all the detail work.
I used a leftover piece of taskboard and made walls a little over an inch high for the test fit. Now that I know everything is perfect I can create the final structure without having to worry.
It's finally cool enough in Florida to work outside so instead of having fun with the layout I spent all day yesterday and this morning doing the final cleanup from the hurricane. But now I'm back inside and layiong track again, starting with the branch line out of Barnesville:
The main line made it across the bridge as well:
This is the last missing piece of track to complete the mainline:
Are you going to have a 'golden spike' ceremony?
No Golden Spike but at least a yellow train... The last piece of mainline track has been installed:
Here's a shot across most of the layout. Can you spot the train?
You can click here for a bigger, high resolution image.
Now all that's missing are about 50 feet of branch line and the second staging yard/return loop.