Next on the agenda is the trestle, AKA upper San Emigdio Canyon Bridge.
This one is a lot simpler that the truss bridge. The tricky part is laying out the stringers and ties on such a sharp curve.
12/17/24: Worked on the deck this morning. Laid it out on a sheet of cardstock, stuck down the ties with double sided tape, fabricated the stringers and glued them to the ties.
(Later): This afternoon, I was going to just spike rail on the deck, but once I got going, I ended up laying rail from the truss bridge to the far end of the trestle deck. There's just a foot or so of rail left to lay on the other side.
I'll probably build the trestle bents tomorrow and slide them in under the deck. Somewhere along the way I'll lay the last bit of rail. Unless something weird happens, I should easily have the track and bridges complete and trains running by Christmas.
12/18/24: I put in a lot of time today and got the main trestle tower nearly complete. It just needs a few more NBWs and some touch-up paint. Then carve the footings. I'll glue the footings down but leave the frame loose until I fill in the ground cover in the canyon bottom.
12/19/24: I had a moment -- more like a few hours -- of doubt, looking at the trestle last night and this morning. I'm happy with the build but the proportions seemed off.
The bents are built to drawings of a narrow gauge trestle, and are actually slightly undersize. They are spaced 3.5 inches -- 14 scale feet -- apart at the centerline, which is typical on the prototype. Where things look off is that I used undersized timbers: 3/16 square for the posts, and 1/8 x 1/16 for the bracing, which scales out to about 3/4 of the size the prototype would normally use. Combine that with the fact that I'm still looking at things with H.O. scale eyes, the bents look too far apart.
I thought about rebuilding it with three bents spaced closer together, or maybe replacing the side bracing, at least, with my larger material.
But looking at it again this morning, and especially posing a train on it, the proportions make more sense. The distance between bents is actually about the same as the length of the 0-4-2.
I'm going to leave it for now, carve the footings, and call it done. I can always go back and rebuild it later.
12/19/24: Carved the footings today. They're glued in place but the trestle frame is still loose. I notice in the picture one of the diagonals needs to be re-glued. Tomorrow I'll paint, and maybe even get some ground cover in.
12/20/24: painted and first application of ground cover.
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