My wife Linda and I were visiting the CA State RR Museum in Sacramento last Thursday. A loud horn blew in the distance, and to my surprise the huge bridge we’d seen started swinging. I would have guessed it was too old to operate (I later found out it was built in 1911), but it sure did, and swung pretty quickly.
The lower level is for trains, upper carries a highway.
Cliffy
Had to laf when we seen this post Cliff. We had this guy (Don Rosen ) in our Ho club that was the S.P. I st. bridge Oper. for more than 25 years. Don show us how it operated before they updated the electronics on it. He retired about 5 years later after that. The old way was to use mirrors to see if all gates was down and no people walking on the walk way. He also controlled the Trains Sig. from there. Its a neat old bridge and still in use today by the U.P.
Anyway… we modeled one of a kind like it on our Garden R.R… about 10 years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyvc-aeza6M
On ours, we had to do a lot of fig. on how to get it working like the real bridge. We had to make a slow gear dr. with large a ring gear, Bridge lock, Sounds and power up the bridge track due, to we were track power.
Sorry we missed ya. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)We are only about 10 miles from downtown Sacto.
What a great model, Noel!
Love your auto-block and signals.
Cliff Jennings said:
What a great model, Noel!
Love your auto-block and signals.
…
Thanks Cliff… Glad you guys got to see it open and close. It can’t turn all the way around any more do to a barge hit it in the late 90ths. So now kinda out of alignment and only can oper. 90 degs.
Don… use to turn it all the way around sometimes to keep the sun out of the shack windows. Another thing was to watch that first step going up the ladder over the river. lol. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
The bosses wouldn’t spring for a window shade, so Don turns the bridge 180. Classic!!
Nice bridge, . . . thanks for posting. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)
Cool bridges, both the prototype and the model!
Yeah, but are those goldfish to scale? They look more like orange whales!!!
John Passaro Yeah, but are those goldfish to scale? They look more like orange whales!!!
John Passaro… All gold fish got eat up over the years from big gray bird. Now only have 39 Koi’s form over the big pond. The orange whales are
over here to get rid of the Agent Orange and to go multi colors in the USA. lol
Clif… You’ll notice in your photos… all of the bridge finders boards are all gone this year now. Its form over the years of the high water and Debra hanging up on them. Summer time, we’ll see Tugs pulling out limbs and old trees stuck under the water on the post.
They are to scale…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_and_Dawn
Noel and his crew do great work!
Adam
Good catch, Adam.
I guess Noel just hasn’t yet gotten around to painting their factory finish to “humpback gray.” (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
Cliff Jennings said:
Good catch, Adam.
I guess Noel just hasn’t yet gotten around to painting their factory finish to “humpback gray.” (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
…
There are three dark grays and silver one in there, but rest must of got to wet and maybe factory Humpback gray color washed off ?? Still have to much Agent Orange and spots on them yet…Ha ha Ha …(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-sealed.gif)
Cliff… I found these photo i had from years back.
Night time photo in the 90’s.
And 1948 with the boat finders on.
This is showing where the old S.P. frt. sheds was and now all gone except a few tracks for Sacramento Museum to use for there ride on trains.
Great shots Noel, thanks!
