Large Scale Central

Washout on the Candlewood Valley

Track and Trestles
#21

EBT as in East Broad Top Railroad. Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Specifically I’d love to find a home in the tiny village of Rockhill Furnace, but sales are few and far between. The small village of Orbisonia is just across the creek and regularly has homes for sale. Prices in the area range from $25K to over $2M depending on many factors. What I’ve seen for $25K would need a large investment in repairs/renovations.

I recently passed on a very good deal that I probably could have bought with a very small mortgage. A house with frontage on the main road (US 522) that had a detached garage workshop on the road behind. I really don’t want to be on the main road as there is heavy traffic almost 24 hours a day.

#22

Had some time this week and weekend to move forward with the bridge repair. All of the missing angles were replaced, the top and bottom sheet simulating the bottom and top of the girder were re-attached and finally all of the flaked off paint was touched up.

I decided to go with brush applied matte black acrylic craft paint (thanks Marilyn) and just cover the bare aluminum spots. I did not wash the girder first, just used a stiff brush to remove as much flaking paint and mud as possible. I’m really happy with how it turned out. It even stands up to close up pictures!

I need to repair a few ties on the deck and that is waiting on more glue. I will easily have the repair complete by the time the snow melts. Maybe late next week?

Here are the latest progress pics…

EDIT to add a before shot…

This is just natural weathering and touch-up paint…

What looks like rust along the angles is actually deteriorating epoxy…

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#23

OUCH!
this orderly hobby room hurts my eyes.

#24

Love the bench holding the bridge. I never have enough bench space.

Is this left over from the pre-permanent press ironing era, or is there a boy band keyboard history to this bench? :grin:

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#25

Far from orderly. There is junk covering nearly every flat surface! But thanks!

Exactly. My oldest is a keyboard player and he abandoned this stand when he moved out many years ago. It’s handy because it will fold up and tuck away. It usually supports my chop saw, but works perfect for this application.

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#26

Great choice to paint over the old stuff Jon, adds depth & texture.

Cheers
N

#27

Bridge repair is done. Just waiting for the sun to melt a bit more of last week’s snow to put it back. Should probably wait until a warm spring day to tighten the rail clamps.

The deck was re-attached to the girder after repairing a few ties that had popped loose and adding a lot more spikes…

When the bridge was first built I was very short on spikes and only spiked every third tie or so. On the last refurb I added a lot more, but still skipped a lot of ties. This week I used up my entire stock of spikes, but there is now at least one spike per tie on each rail…

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#28

It was sunny and 45F when I got home from work around 1PM. Perfect day to place the bridge back where it belongs. I had shoveled away the snow a few days ago. High sun angle and days above freezing got rid of all the ice around the abutments.

It looks like I still need to work on the down hill abutment as there still seems to be a bit of a kink there. It will be interesting to see how the joints shake out. The bridge rail was acclimated to indoor temps while the track at either end is very cold. I didn’t snug down the clamps. Here it is back in place…

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#29

It’s been a while since I first posted the washout. Here’s a refresher pic from very early this spring…

While I was waiting for it to warm up so the landscape adhesive would work, I screwed up my back. Today I finally felt up to tackling the repair. I dug up some earlier pictures of what it looked like before and did my best to put the jigsaw puzzle back together.

My end result is a bunch closer to the track and perhaps too high, so I ran a few trains out to check clearance…

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I need to wait a day or so for the adhesive to cure, then I’ll put back the fill behind and ballast above. While I’m at it I’ll move a bunch of Sedum from the other side of the track to make room for the restored Wall Passenger Shelter.

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#30

Today the track crew filled the huge hole made when the area was excavated. Half a 5 gallon bucket of Sedum was removed from the area where Wall Station will be placed once again. Ballast and fill was leveled. The platform and station will go in as soon as they are wired up. Fill is in place…

This motley crew was observed watching the work. They have been waiting years for the stations return so they can ride…

The track was ballasted awaiting arrival of the test train…

I think I can finally say that this project is done!

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#31

Done just in time for one or two more seasons before the railroad files for abandonment?

#32

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The Roosta has flown the coup where did He go ?

#33

Nice job Jon. I have a major repair I need to make also. Wife informed me early in the spring that one of my retaining walls was collapsing and pushing on my fence. Since you did such a nice job repairing yours you can feel free to come fix mine.

#34

My youngest is very experienced with wall block, and he lives a lot closer to you near Denver. I think he might have some time on his calendar in say 2029.

#35

Might be about the time I get around to it