I think that’s what the red blinking lights do Doug. The manufacturer recommends moving them around every couple of weeks to keep them guessing.
Usually I put up a rope “fence” around the layout for the winter. With bright colored ribbon tied to the rope. Rope goes from tree to tree around the layout.
Since we haven’t had any significant damage in years, this past year I didn’t put up the rope. And wouldn’t you know it this was the year the elk herd came through.
I always bring in the turnouts for the winter. Storing them in the garage. It would be awful if the elk damaged a turnout. Since all are custom built, it takes quite a while to get turnouts from Llagas Creek.
Some good news, I fixed part of the area in the previous photos today. Took pretty much all day but it looks so much better now:
Here’s a track plan (the area in the photos is Silverton):
were you able to re use the track? or was it just way to mangled? That has to be really fustrating, but in a roundabout way I would rather have the damage done my elk rather than some punk kids thinking it is funny doing something like that. THEN I would be really mad.
Pete Lassen said:
were you able to re use the track? or was it just way to mangled?
This area was too mangled to reuse. So I had to make new track sections.
I’ll cut what I can from the mangled rail and use it for sidings, short filler pieces, etc…
As far as Elk doing the damage goes … They are so heavy and ponderous that they probably did the damage without even noticing. They just came down and across that section stepping on the snow and didn’t even see what was there. If a few more sections were harmed they might have stayed to graze, and did a lot of walking on your right-of-way.
Track work all done in this area:
Nice recovery Matt. I love the setting you have built in.