Mill Street: Boston & Maine Branchline

[garethashenden]

Made a start on actual construction. I bought a 4’x8’ sheet of 3/4” foam and cut it into 1’x2’ pieces. I stacked three pieces on each little baseboard and did some very basic carving on the river and millpond. I need to clean up the mating edges and add the background hills before I lay the track. I’m not sure about how to best control the turnouts, I’m fine with something mechanical but the most important requirement is that it’s discrete. At the moment I’m leaning towards micro slide switches but I’m interested in alternatives if anyone has good ideas.

[Ian MacMillan]

Oh holy crap I am so into this!...

[magicman_841]

Oh my god, it's CATZILLA!! 

[garethashenden]

I got the baseboard ends done, complete with alignment pins. Front and rear still to do along with the latches to hold everything together. Roadbed and track soon!

[garethashenden]

Oh my god, it's CATZILLA!! 

She’s super helpful   

[Bryn]

An interesting subject, presented well in layout form. Great work Gareth!

[garethashenden]

I’ve been having some bridge problems. I really want a skewed through truss bridge, but the river is sized for a girder bridge. Before I finished the river, or even put down plaster cloth, I wanted to have the right sized gap between the track. So I started with the Central Valley kit and modified it a bit to be both shorter and skewed. Turns out it’s way too big. There are turnouts at either end of the bridge, with 7” from one blade tip to the other. The bridge is 8.5” on each side.
I could shorten the bridge and build it either straight or skewed, but with only one straight section it would look a bit odd. A girder bridge is, I suppose, an option as well. But I think the best idea is to add another foot to the length of the layout. This would give a substantial increase in scenery, given the small size of the project, and fix a couple of other issues. At the moment one of the turnouts is laid over a board joint. It’s not impossible to build, I’ve done it before, but if I can avoid it I’d like to. The run around loop is also a bit small. It’s adequate for the traffic on the branch, but I’d like it to reflect diminished traffic and unnecessary capacity. I’m going to think about it for a day or so before committing, but that’s the direction I’m heading in.

Here is the river and the bridge overlaid on top to show the problem. The right hand end is in position and not really moveable, it’s the left hand side that would change.

[OldEastRR]

I assume scenic look is as important to this layout as track and function, so you have to ask yourself what kind of bridge will give you the look you want? It's obviously easy to cut down the CV bridge by one more panel, but then the bridge has a rather dinky (yes it would be a girder bridge if the real RR had anything to say about it) look -- if what you want is a satisfying spidery rusted framework look.
Really don't see why the bridge needs to be skewed -- the angle across the river isn't that acute. The reason the bridge in your photo is skewed is because they had to put the center pier aligned with the flow of the waterway for least resistance. Then they skewed the bridges to match. Can't really say if the bank ends were skewed.
If you moved that part of the river so it cut under the track at a real shallow angle then a skewed bridge -- and I agree a longer one -- would really fit well and logically. I'd suggest instead of lengthening the module you shorten the passing siding to get a longer bridge. And move the coal dealer spur to come off the left end of it, as a short spur coming off the crossover or a sharp curving spur from near the middle of the siding, but heading to the left.
Making the module bigger sorta wrecks the idea of a small crowded layout in a small space.
Wondering why you don't have a spur coming off the "Main" along the siding, heading toward the backdrop. Or, to go along with the decrepit and disused look, only the rails of the spur but no turnout to it?

[davefoxx]

I'll just add that, unless there is clearance issues underneath the bridge for river traffic, a deck girder bridge would probably be the choice of the railroad.

If you can add that 12" of length to the layout (without causing issues elsewhere, e.g., aisle space) and widen the space between the turnouts, then you'd be getting to a river width that would justify the through truss bridge.  A little more scenery space, i.e., negative space, never hurts.

DFF

[OldEastRR]

This situation of the layout needing to be enlarged somewhere because a certain look to the scenery is desired crops up quite a bit among model rails. Probably because they're focused on a certain amount of track in a certain space, and how to do that, and never think (or just in a vague way) about the topography and natural scenic features that they'll add later. Sometimes they only do the scenic planning for a certain iconic spot(s) they plan to model. For whatever reason I picked up the habit of working out not only the track, but the natural and artificial features that are part of the landscape. I've even gone so far as make up histories for the towns and rail routes I plan to make, so as to figure out why and how they were placed where they were depending on  the land features.
As a result, none of my towns are completely flat, the track curves where it needs to avoid obstacles like already built-up areas or natural features (waterways and rock outcroppings),  arrangements, and the line is usually running through a small cut or over a short fill.
In your case, you planned for the millrace to be next to the mill, but obviously you had a certain look for the bridge because you're not satisfied with what you have there now.

[garethashenden]

Much better!

[Hawghead]

Much better!

I like it!

Scott

[OldEastRR]

And so the carefully planned, exact dimension paper track template has its first dissection. Let's see if there's any others. 

[garethashenden]

And so the carefully planned, exact dimension paper track template has its first dissection. Let's see if there's any others. 

Well, the reason I started on the bridge now was to make sure it fit. It didn’t, so I made adjustments. The bridges (there’s a road bridge as well) are a major part of the layout and I want to get it right.

[Missaberoad]

Nice! Very remenisant of the Rutland bridge in Bellows Falls.