PROGRESS!

It's been a long time since much noteworthy progress happened on the Slate Creek, at least that could be published here. Certainly there have been model railroad projects in the works (some of which will soon appear in these pages) but the railroad itself fell behind mostly because of the overwhelming size of the task of building the hardshell scenery. The Slate Creek takes up most of a 40x40 foot basement, and has a hardshell "hillside" from one to three feet high for most of its length!

This week, we had a visit of state from Mr. Paul Weiss, who has the distinction of being the Chief Civil Engineer from the Slate Creek (Mark I) and with his help, we finally have something to show you!

Now, the Slate Creek is primarily a loop railroad, so, starting from the pier and working clockwise around the main line is officially "Timetable North." Place names are simply working titles (though some will probably stick) and for now are really only designed to help visitors figure out where they're standing!

The scenery construction started at the "North" portal of the tunnel, entering the canyon area, and has now progressed through the "Big Cut" at the end of the canyon, around the curve to Midway, past the turn north of the station, and along the back side of the layout to High Bridge, and around the curve to the south switch for the Mine area. The south portal of the tunnel is immediately opposite the south Mine switch on the layout (though, in the "real world) the two would not be near each other, and when the scenery is complete will look like the two totally different places they are.

So, without further ado, the tour!



Here you see the line immediately north of the "Big Cut" This is roughly the area seen in the last couple of photos in the previous post, and has some difficult geography; the hill had to be specially shaped to allow a hatch in the "ground" to allow access to the central air unit for the second floor of the house which is directly above this area on the ceiling!




In these two photos, you see the area to the north of the Midway Station, from two different angles, and, a kind of "Before and After" effect. The hillside is made from wire mesh screen on a wood framework, which, once built has layers of Hydrocal (plaster) soaked paper towels applied, and then a finishing layer of Hydrocal. The "before" photo also features our Chief Civil Engineer hard at work ... Thanks Paul!



This photo shows the area just north of Midway and toward High Bridge. The track, for the most part is out of range of this particular shot, being below the photo and to the left until it starts to come back in toward the wall just before the bridge. This area will have the depot rd, and possibly the church... time will tell. The missing corner section has been screened in, and is awaiting plaster along with the rest of the scenery north of this point.



Here you see the future location of High Bridge, one of the few locations on the layout with scenery to be built significantly below the grade of the track. As the plaster is not yet installed, you can also see into the tunnel interior, which comes out at the bottom of the "canyon" area.



The screen currently ends here, at the south switch for the Mine area. The lower terrain makes it possible to see people coming down the stairs when I'm in the shop area, and is one of the only places on the railroad where you can see "someplace else" from any other area ... even if that's not supposed to be possible. It also allows some scenery elements that might not otherwise be available because most of the "walls" are so steep elsewhere on the layout. I kept it this way because it reminds me a little of the old Edaville, where if timed properly, outbound trains could see the inbound trains as they rounded the sharp turn at the Rusty River... even if, for purposes of the layout, those two places are miles apart and would never actually be in view of each other. I think it'll afford some interesting "railfan" opportunities nonetheless!



This last photo really should be the first, before the ones in the last entry, even. This is the south portal of the tunnel, as viewed vaguely from the hilltop I described above, and, imagining this with plaster shell, scenery, trees, and other elements, I think it's going to be one of the more photogenic locations on the railroad. No hikers in the tunnel, please! The north switch for the Mill will be located approximately in the foreground of this photo.

The rest of the layout has some of the wood framework installed, but will have to have the sidings for the mine and the mill installed before the screen can be applied... though the design of these areas is a lot futher along now that I can see exactly how much room I have to work with, and what I can make work with respect to track geometry. Stay tuned!

Altogether a fantastic week's work! A particular vote of thanks to Paul for making this all possible, and to the folks at work who let me have a couple of days off to participate ... I'm beginning to believe I might just get this thing built after all!

And... I promise, it won't be another eight months to the next update!