Friday, November 29, 2019

A retaining wall for the transfer track

While the trestle is under construction I thought I'd get started on the scenery on the other end of the layout, where there is a transfer track to shift cargo between the narrow gauge and standard gauge.  The narrow gauge track is elevated by a scale 18" to facilitate the transfer, and I wanted a low stone retaining wall to separate the two tracks.  I was going to cast it in plaster like the trestle abutments but decided to try carving it from basswood instead, since I had basswood strips in the right size lying around. The blocks were carved with an X-acto knife and then textured by tapping the strips with a hammer:


Here's a photo taken from the back of the layout showing how the wall looks after painting and installation. It also shows the ballast mix I'm experimenting with, which is two parts "pit run" to one part "NP gray" from Arizona Rock and Mineral.


For the transfer crane, I am using the Walthers "LCL container terminal" gantry crane but placing it on a fixed foundation rather than rails.  In the following photo it is set in place temporarily as it is only half-finished. The kit is designed with metal walkways, which I am covering with stripwood for a more rustic look.


Saturday, November 9, 2019

Trestle construction, part 1

The trestle over the Mill River (which, truth be told, is really more of a creek) will be assembled in place, starting with the stringers and deck and then adding the bents last. Since this is a two-foot-gauge railroad, I only used four stringers, two under each rail.  Each stringer is actually a single length of 1/8” x 3/16” basswood (scale 10x16), but since the trestle is on a 21” radius curve, it should have separate stringers running between each bent and angled to follow the curve.

To mimic this look, I lightly scored the inside face at scale 12’ intervals and then made a deeper cut on the opposite side.  Then I could gently bend each joint slightly without completely breaking it.


The inside stringer was scored at exact 12’ intervals, which is 42 mm in HO, and then the others were scored at 0.5 mm increments (42.5, 43, 43.5 mm) to account for the curve. Each pair of stringers is assembled with short pieces of scale 2x8 as spacers, and then the pairs are glued together with short 1/16" wide spacer blocks. I didn't bother to place the spacers in prototypical locations since they will be hidden by the bridge ties.

After the glue dried I trimmed the ends to length, installed nut-bolt-washer castings, and added short timber retaining walls at each end to hold back the fill at the top of the abutments.


It will be a couple of weeks before I can continue this build, but I'm looking forward to installing the trestle and finally getting started on scenery! And at some point I need to get back to that forney project.