Good progress Devon, You won’t be sorry you took the time to elevate things when you are “done”. I’m also interested to see how your track plan ends up. Has to be hard to come to a decision when your building rod bed since you just cant move some dirt and ballast to re-position if you change your mind. I like those nice round rocks too.
Randy Lehrian Jr. said:
Has to be hard to come to a decision when your building rod bed since you just cant move some dirt and ballast to re-position if you change your mind. I like those nice round rocks too.
This confined space is sort of an interesting challenge. On the one hand it is. . .well confining. You can’t just extend it here and bend it there. It is frustrating to run into problem and not be able to merely adjust. But It is also an interesting experiment in engineering. I actually have to say I am quite enjoying the challenge. It has created some interest I wasn’t expecting that, even though it created a lot of extra work, is turning out to be pretty nice looking. Antway I am making due.
Devon Sinsley said:
Randy Lehrian Jr. said:
Has to be hard to come to a decision when your building rod bed since you just cant move some dirt and ballast to re-position if you change your mind. I like those nice round rocks too.
This confined space is sort of an interesting challenge. On the one hand it is. . .well confining. You can’t just extend it here and bend it there. It is frustrating to run into problem and not be able to merely adjust. But It is also an interesting experiment in engineering. I actually have to say I am quite enjoying the challenge. It has created some interest I wasn’t expecting that, even though it created a lot of extra work, is turning out to be pretty nice looking. Antway I am making due.
Kind of like building a real railroad, ay Devon? They couldn’t just slap down another piece of plywood, or bench-work, and keep going. They had to work with the terrain, and the confines of the terrain, to get to where they were going. But where I have to use a pry-bar and muscle power to (re)move rocks, they had dynamite.
David,
You’re right it is just like a real railroad. And I believe I have many of the same problems. When progress gets bogged down by the confines of the terrain the board of directors gets antsy that progress isn’t moving fast enough. . .sigh lol all they want is track laid and trains rolling.
I hope you are compacting the fill as you go … you don’t want any surprises in the spring.
Sean, I compacted the large fill in my lower reverse loop. It still settled/sank. So every couple of years I have filled it in again. I am hopeful, but not confident, that this last batch of fill is the last batch.
Sean McGillicuddy said:
I hope you are compacting the fill as you go … you don’t want any surprises in the spring.
Somewhat. Actually I am not doing much compacting other than walking on it a bunch. I fully expect it to settle come spring. That is why all of the ladder supports are down to native and then a foot deeper. All of the rock work retaining walls are on native soil. So the fill can settle and it won’t effect anything. I am not going to get carried away with landscaping until at least next year. One nice thing about being in the work field I am I have a pretty good understanding of settling ground.
So here are some pictures of the most current work. I have to say I am pretty well out of steam. So today was just a day of putzing around and avoiding heavy lifting and dirt shoveling. I did get work done between yesterday and today. Here is one of the stairs and track crossings.
So the track crossings in the pathway needed to be able to take an occasional stepping on. I used left over PVC lumber and cut strips 1/4" X 1/4" with the wood grain on one side. I then hand spiked it down to the track and painted it with Rustoleum red primer. I think it came out great and will keep an accidental step from ruining the track.
I think that wood grain looks real good. It gives me a whole host of ideas on how this stuff can be used. Such as for tunnel portals and bridge abutments. Should outlast any wood.
I laid a couple of the switches as well. This area I have decided will be a lumber mill. It will be the town of Burke on the map and Burke never had a sawmill. . .but it will now. It will also be home to some Dennis Rayburn inspired cliff hangers. The real town of Burke was located in a narrow canyon often times only 100’ wide and never more than 300’ wide in the town. Tight quarters and cliff hangers were the norm.
Finally I built a bunch more ladder that is extending toward the eastern fence and I am calling this are the grade. It will climb at 3% in this section.
In addition to all that over the weekend I sifted a half a yard of gravel. The stairs and pathway are using the sorted out larger stuff that stayed behind after using a 1/4" mesh screen. The fines are the fill you see in the lumber mill area. All of the ladder is supported and surrounded by the raw unsifted materiel. I even ran the fines through some window screen to remove the silt and used the clean 1/4"- gravel as the top coat of ballast just to give it a clean ballasted look. Not sure how long that will last but it looks nice.
I also loaded up my trailer with a yard of fill dirt to begin the next phase of raised bed building.
Well that it for now. I am on vacation this week but have a lot to do with homework, preparing a presentation for Saturday, and will be gone at various points to the NP convention.
great progress Devon!!! looks like you are on schedule!
I guess it had to happen sooner or later, sure took a while to get here though…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Ken, yea, didn’t it though.
Devon that is looking very promising! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
Sean, lets hope he doesn’t Devon it at this point.
OMG you guys are relentless.
What did expect Hmmmm (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)?
Yea, Devon. You have such a reputation that a new word, Devoning, has been added to the LSC lexicon.
Well at least I am good for something
yeah Devon if you were not here they would be in big trouble by now. They should send you a 12pack for keeping them entertained and for keeping their sarcasm and witty remarks all up to date.Enjoy the Vacation
Nice looking progress Devon. Have fun this week at the NP convention. I found a great treasure of the NP at the Izzak Walton Inn and took several pictures of it. It answers all the questions I couldn’t find on the NP Historical site about modeling this caboose. I already have most of this caboose built. It’s the wooden bay window caboose made from wooden boxcars.
Chuck
Chuck Inlow said:
Nice looking progress Devon. Have fun this week at the NP convention. I found a great treasure of the NP at the Izzak Walton Inn and took several pictures of it. It answers all the questions I couldn’t find on the NP Historical site about modeling this caboose. I already have most of this caboose built. It’s the wooden bay window caboose made from wooden boxcars.
Chuck
Well that’s cool. I love finding stuff like that. Especially in weird places. I finally got all my thoughts together for my presentation for Sat’s modeling talk and put together a small power point. I should be able to wing it for about half an hour or so. It is on modeling obscure prototypes and where one can find information and how to put research into modeling practice. Its a marriage between my research and modeling the CR&N. Hopefully its entertaining.
It will be a busy week and not much will get done between the convention and homework. We will see what I can squeeze in.
Devon Sinsley said:
Well that it for now. I am on vacation this week but have a lot to do with homework, preparing a presentation for Saturday, and will be gone at various points to the NP convention.
I hope that you’ll be in Wallace at 9 am on Thursday… I know I will be. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)Heading over to Spokane to stay with my sister after work tomorrow. Planning on putting the finishing touches on the presentation on the drive over…Good thing the wife and kids are coming to visit cousins…The wife can drive while I plug away with the final last minute touches. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
